Doxxing Files |OT| Do not use a pandemic to make a platform wars thread

[Chim Richalds]

Guys I think even Nepenthe is fed up with those fucking lunatics, this is getting good.

[Tasty]

The fuck is wrong with these people.

Get some fresh air. Go fishing.

Making a message board my entire life and identity for some reason made a ton of sense when I was 13-16 with a lot of free time.

But I can only speak for me...

[Tasty]

What's sadder than someone making a post like that is the half dozen people who will inevitably force themselves to read the whole thing. Wasting your time writing (creating) is one thing, but to spend an almost equal amount of time just consuming it? Very sad.

[Averon]

All I got gleaming from that is Ketkat and her peoples are desperate to get her unbanned...again.

[Tuckers Law]

Amazing how much damage one person continues to do to that community even after being banned all this time.   

[DJ Bedroom]

I've put less effort into college papers I got A's on

[Tasty]

It's not even really about a few dumb bans and Poodle's dismissive "pound sand" remark to A.by (which shouldn't have been done and was uncalled for, no matter how he feels about it).

Um wouldn't he agree? He tried editing it out right after, and then apologized. What's with this barely veiled passive aggressive gaslighting lmao.

[railGUN]

Five thousand, four hundred and forty-eight words.

Bitch, you need a hobby.

[paprikastaude]

Five thousand, four hundred and forty-eight words.

Bitch, you need a hobby.

How about videogames? I heard that's an easy distraction

[benjipwns]

Heart-wrenching.

[nudemacusers]

these two posts remind me of something I was reading earlier in the thread:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/constructive-community-discussion.270630/post-54328819

Alright, so this is probably going to be my only post in the thread. It's not gonna be any PR speak, nor is it going to assuage anyone's feelings, staff or members. Y'all are going to be mad, but that's the secret at this point. It’ll be a recap of things, but most of it is going to be about the toll this has taken on me. No, I don't give a shit if you think this is inappropriately rerouting the conversation; I'm burnt out and subsequently apathetic. I've been holding on to a lot of this for over a year, and I'm going to get it off my chest now before I discuss what I want to do for ResetEra moving forward. However you take it is on you. This thread will also be locked so you can't skip over it, and it will be reopened in 10 minutes, approximately 9:40 PM EST.

Let's start with Black Chamber. I don't want to relitigate too much, but yeah, that was a fuck-up, and I apologize. Even if he wasn't a MAGA asshat, his inability to consider the feelings of trans members meant he should've lost right to the OT immediately at the bare minimum. I believe part of the unstated goal of ResetEra is that members take an ethical approach to expressing video game fandom, by which I largely mean not stepping on the toes of minorities who get the short end of the stick in a medium that is largely still a conservative, white-ass cesspool of juvenility. BC didn't do that, so fuck him. And Cyberpunk, that trash-ass game.

After that, Sophia decided on her own to enter talks with Trans Era members. That was fair, and I know she was in Discords with and friends with members who were hurt by what happened. At this point, I wasn't asked to be involved, and frankly I wasn't going to be initially. I'm still exhausted from the Asian Era meeting (more on that at the end), and I didn't feel like picking up something like that at the moment. But from what I understood, the meeting was going to be about Black Chamber and Cyberpunk, how to handle contentious OTs, the issues with egregious fan hype- shit that had to do with the immediate issue that had happened to Trans Era.

Imagine my fucking surprise then when Toxi PMd me about Ketkat out of nowhere.

Again. I am not part of the Trans Era Discord. I was never included or mentioned as wanting to participate in anything Sophia was organizing at that time. Ket had fuck all to do with the Cyberpunk issue since she was banned. So why, oh why, is anyone relitigating this bullshit to me, specifically, at this moment in time?

I didn't respond to it. Instead I let staff know about it, at which point another staffer admitted they'd been strung up about Ketkat on Discord. I called it what it was- a set up- and actually told us to disengage, that the talks were not going to be productive, and that it was going to blow up some way or another. There was a lot of back and forth about it, to which again I want to apologize to Sophia about, who took this endeavor on entirely by herself in an effort to fix things. Everything that has gone down is an absolute insult to her and her efforts, and I know my reluctance was another wrench in the works.

I also want to make it clear that I didn't say this with the attempt to paint every single trans person who is an Era member, or even the overwhelming majority of trans members, as problematic. Minorities as a whole are NOT the problem. The majority of us here all want the same goals at the end of the day, which is for ResetEra to be a place where minorities can comfortably discuss gaming from their unique points of view without the bullshit they face everywhere else on the Internet. Kyuuji, for example, has been an amazing force for getting these issues pushed to the forefront of the wider forum at large. But the unstated fact here is that a lot of the issues regarding the forum culture and the nature of our moderation are inexplicably tied into toxicity and long-held grudges, and some individuals will use genuine efforts to better the site as opportunities to harass staff, a lot of them not even being part of the aggrieved groups in question.

I also want to further preface this by saying that it is likely my belief that the meeting was about the Cyberpunk incident, when instead it was about previous grievances, was nothing more than the result of miscommunication. I wasn't there with Sophia for the majority of the planning, so I don't know anything that was discussed. But again, from my perspective, I'm getting pulled into some irrelevant shit for a discussion that I never actually volunteered for. So yeah, it smelled funny to me and thus I thought the talks were a bad idea.

But they went forward anyway, even with Sophia- whose mental health had already taken a downturn due to prior stress- pulling out because the rules for engagement that were apparently established beforehand weren't respected by a few individuals in the Discord, and made her personal situation worse. From the gist of the participants, things weren't going too well. I think that, in general, people have appreciated my presence in these matters before and that I have somewhat of a knack for community engagement, so against my better judgement, against everything, and everyone- actual friends of mine- screaming at me not to do it, it is at that point when the meeting was already underway that I finally told them to give me an invite to see if I could help.

The beginning actually went pretty well! Ignoring sudden deluges of questions and the inconvenient timer, A.by, Banshee McSpook, Robin, and others were asking me questions, I would answer them to the best of my ability, and they would understand, regardless of whether or not the answers were what they wanted to hear. There were even a few laughs to be had. For a moment it was a genuine roundtable, and I was hopeful, especially since it was going to give me an opportunity to discuss things that staff had been talking about regarding long-term solutions. I will also admit that again my overall lack of participation in the planning phases meant that some of my answers and understanding of the purpose of the meeting meant I was inaccurate or ignorant to some of the things that were brought up, and a few members felt I had just been tossed in there (and I want to again appreciate the concern, but again I willingly volunteered last minute to talk.)

I was eventually faced with a Google Doc of demands/bullet points, and Ketkat jumped in around this time. As I had figured out before then, this really wasn't about the latest kerfuffle. Not fully. It was partially about Ket; indeed the first three points of the list revolved around her to various degrees. After some beating around the bush, I told her straight to her face that she wasn't coming back and that any demands folks had regarding her were totally non-negotiable.

That's when and why things blew up. We didn’t get to the rest of the list or any other questions various folks may have had. I faced a mix of angry venting, the dismissal of my identity (I'm NB), deliberately bad-faith readings of my posts, and petty snipes, particularly from Papa Santanas, who is also permed and thus I don't have the pleasure of fucking bodying them personally for engaging in an overstepping of bounds that I will talk about at length later on. Now note, the anger from various folks didn't personally bother me; I understand, especially because I know real life 2020 shit is compounding on top of the problems people have with staff and the forum, and thus I don't mind if people need to vent.

However, Ket also tried to paint me as a liar for my participation in the debacle back in November 2019 on top of this, which is fucking ironic because I am one of the few reasons she even got a third (not even a second) chance in the first place. Let it be known- without me jumping in that day, and without me having it out with staff about how things went down, Ket would've still been gone the first time. So any problem she, or anyone else who is in her circle, has with me on that front, you can miss me with that. I don’t give a fuck.

Regardless, once things settled, I was disingenuously asked by Ket if I had anything to say to everything that I had been privy to, all of the venting and rage and sarcasm, as if there is some magical response anyone can craft in the face of tens of posts of stream-of-consciousness to make it all better. And I will reiterate the same sentiment to you all.

No.

I don't.

Because while I can jump into threads and mediate, and answer questions, and engage with ideas, and take things back to staff, and field PMs, and remind my team of outstanding issues and tickets and things of that nature, and further codify new lessons in the rules and staff policies, I can't eliminate the hurt, the grudges, the feelings of betrayal, and the resulting toxicity coming from all corners of this blasted website whenever shit goes down, a lot of which is from people's personal lives or involves fights I was never privy to, and it was wrong for me to try to involve myself. I'm not a fucking Magical Negro and I'm tired of trying to play one at the expense of my mental health when, ultimately, none of this shit matters.

Because again, all of this? It's not REALLY about Cyberpunk. It's not even really about a few dumb bans and Poodle's dismissive "pound sand" remark to A.by (which shouldn't have been done and was uncalled for, no matter how he feels about it). We ALL need to be honest about that. It's about people being angry, and people not liking each other, and people unhappy with the community demographics and how those demographics inform the atmosphere, and about how personally betrayed people feel when their friends get banned, which staff can’t actually do anything about. And if it's all really about that, then individuals need to ask themselves if Era, even at its best, can give them the online community they desire. Because if nothing else, if Era cannot be a safe space, if staff- if I, Nepenthe- have failed that fucking badly, then it's not fair to any minorities to stay in a hostile environment, and for those people, I will not tell them to stay. It is selfish to beg people to put up with shit they don't have to put up with for the veneer of harmony. I don't even do that with some of my Discord friends who don't post on Era anymore, so why would I do that to others?

(Note: This is ACTUALLY what people are referring to when they discuss the "admin who told them to fuck off." Notice how fucking weasely that characterization is? I never once told anyone to fuck off.)

So afterwards I talked a little more with A.by, specifically about how her ticket was dismissed and about receiving an apology from the staffers who signed off on it. I told her that was perfectly fair because it was unprofessional, and would take it up with relevant staff to get apologies underway. That's where things ended.

Actually, no it's not, because I got pinged hours later- literally around TEN HOURS- by Hexe regarding the above, who said something to the effect of "customer service speak strikes again!" At that point, I had had it. I had fucking had it. I made a crack about Hexe not having the spine to say some shit like that to me on the day of my birthday, reiterated my stance, thanked TransEra for allowing me to talk with them, and requested politely not be pinged again. Hexe then said something to the effect of "you have to understand that we are just angry, and the fact that you're receiving angry responses is not your fault."

Then don't fucking act like it's my fault. Don't insult me. Don't get your lick in hours later and fall back on how you feel or any perceived slights you have that have nothing to do with me, as if merely being upset allows you the moral high ground to treat anyone any kind of way. I won't mince words- this is simply justifying verbal abuse, no two ways about it. And this shit happens all the time to staff, and any members who can see the verbal abuse and the justifications for what it is and who then get caught in the crossfire. At that point, Robin ended it. Some time later on, me and Alice were forcibly kicked.

And you know how I'm fucking right about all of this? You know how I have ground to say this despite being a staffer who should "shut up and listen" and not "tone police?" You know how some of this behavior is NOT okay? I woke up that next morning to a whole-ass three apologies from participants, two of whom were Robin and A.by! A.by apologized for how angry she got (which, again, I say to her that anger is okay. Venting is okay, healthy even! Everything she said to me personally was fair game and I will stick by that) and Robin was dismayed about how the talks were unproductive and ultimately nasty because of those few rabblerousers.

(Robin, btw, PM'd me during the original Trans Week debacle to check up on me. She is legit a good person and is invited permanently to my cookouts.)

The other apology, I will not name unless the person wants me to for the sake of their privacy because of what happened to them after the fact (but they are also absolutely lovely and I wanna talk with them again): they said they received pushback from the Discord for even daring to suggest that treating me, Sophia, and Alice with a modicum of basic human dignity for walking up in there and trying to work things out was unthinkable, and that in reality we deserved everything coming to us.

Imagine how shitty I felt for this person, someone who wanted to help mend relations, who was actually excited about some of the stuff I was able to talk about, someone who wasn't even around for the whole Ketkat thing, being told that their concern about some members' behavior was inappropriate simply because we are staffers and thus we are the enemy. Imagine how shitty I felt hearing that, cementing my original belief that- yes- I had walked right into a trap beget by a few assholes hijacking an important moment against my own better judgement.

Alas, here we are, once again, where unaddressed anger and dumb, unforced errors on part of staff have resulted in yet another one of these blow ups. Yes, the ban on Sibylus was wrong in the way it was conducted, and no amount of staff frustration can make that one okay. So I apologize; the ticket was sent in and we’ve reduced the ban and updated the banner to be more accurate and professional. And again, I know none of this is what anyone wants to hear (but I'm not in a placating mood anyway), and yet people want to know, especially in the wake of what was done to Sibylus and A.By’s PM, is how can Trans Era trust staff? Indeed, Papa said some backhanded bullshit during the meeting like "is there anyone on staff who can properly represent their community?"

So, you want to talk about minority communities and how they're represented? Let's talk about them! Specifically Black ERA! My friends, nay- my family. Y'all ain't put them in your mouths a lot during this entire time. Because you know you can't (or you've forgotten our existence. Not the first time you've excluded us).

Black ERA exists in a space that is just as hostile to them as it is for Trans ERA. They put up with cracka-ass nonsense constantly, a lot of which is from folks who also happen to be LGBT. They have dealt with a staff that has overlooked their concerns and has been ignorant to the issues, philosophies, and culture surrounding blackness and all various black cultures. They too had a meeting, the first one on the forums proper. While staff in general were involved, me and Mist took the reins. We ran back and forth between both parties to organize how the meeting was to be conducted, took feedback, arranged solutions on the fly, all in an effort to let them speak. And speak they did.

Changes happened within reason. AAVE language bans largely stopped. Bans for anti-black racism and pro-cop sentiments were largely helmed by black staff and given the proper punishments they deserved, and in general we started treating that more seriously overall. A lot of bullshit “hostility” reports being directed to black members were batted away. And we have allowed more leeway to black members to go in on stupid, white-ass shit. Has it solved literally everything regarding the culture of Era? Is Era a haven where black members can exist freely without any worry of facing any anti-black sentiments? Well, no; just look at the last few pages of this thread. Overall, Era still is a space dominated by whiteness, which is inevitable by sheer demographic force and is something we cannot change unless we start banning white folks en masse (and everyone understands this won’t happen). There are still some bans that Black Era and the BCC Discord have problems with to this day. I actually got into a protracted slapfight about one ban that I personally enacted, and they are free to tell it themselves in here if they want to however they want to tell it.

But what cannot be said is that I did not try, that Mist and the rest of staff did not try. It cannot be said that we don’t care. It cannot be said that I was incompetent. It cannot be said that I go to bat for them just for the woke points. I cannot be said that they don’t have full trust in me as a black staffer to handle the forum to the best of my ability. And that is what is missing-- trust, and the understanding that there is only so much that individual staffers can do and change on a whim not just because of the forum structure, but because of the people who inhabit it, trust and understanding that our hearts are in the right place even if we cannot push as far as we want to go or achieve every single point on a bullet list that some members want, trust and understanding that if we can’t deliver on something, or even if we get it wrong, it’s not because we hate Black Era because they’re black. They understand that this is a working relationship regarding an imperfect hand being dealt, and that we service them with the intent to make a better space for them to the best of our abilities, inch by inch, day by day.

So I will stand here and declare with pride and confidence that I have done right by Black Era members, and that I have taken these same exact methods and attitudes with me to other communities, including Trans Era. But the fact remains that my efforts just aren't reciprocated in kind.

You want to talk about how minorities here are chased away by staff? Well, where the fuck is the thought for Black Era members when you all use anti-police and black power rhetoric in an effort to foolishly demonstrate your contempt for staff? Where the fuck is your thought for Black Era when you start talking about MLK? Where the fuck is your thought for Black Era when you are NOWHERE to be found defending them when political armchair analysts shit on black people for being low-information voters, homophobes, or saboteurs of elections because they don’t want to vote for candidates that are pro-police? Where the fuck is your thought for Black Era when you co-opt our pain, our issues, our realities, solely for scoring points in some nonsnse internet drama? You want to know one of the reasons why a lot of Black Era doesn’t really engage with you all at this point in time with the exception of a few threads and their community thread? Look in a fucking mirror. Papa did that shit in the meeting too, and again I’m mad they’re permed because I can’t say this to their face. I’m paraphrasing, but this is what she said:

“Imagine being black or Asian and coming to the conclusion that staff just outright hate you for being a minority.”

This right here? Look at it. This is pure, unadulterated crackery. The whitest whitery that ever did white. This is Super Saiyan Blue Karen. It is some of the most uncolored bullshit I could have encountered in a meeting that had absolutely nothing to do with people of color in the first place!

So shame on those of you responsible for the shit you have been pulling, and the shit you pulled the last time during the Asian Era blow-up (Yeah, don’t think I forgot that purple Punisher logo), and every other time we’ve come to this point. I’m sure you’ve been seeing perms for the equation of anything that goes on on ERA to the reality of being black in America. Hello. That was my doing, and I don’t regret it. I don’t care what mistakes we have made, and I don’t even care what bigoted bullshit game companies have put out at this point. You are not George Floyd. You are not Breonna Taylor. You are not any of the myriad of black victims (many of which are trans) who have been legitimately lost to the spectre of white supremacy.

And again, this isn’t the first time this has happened- I’ve seen y’all try to gaslight about that and act like this is new. It ain’t new. What’s new is that this is the first time that I and Black Era are actually checking your asses in public. If you want this to be a forum that takes into account ACTUAL intersectionality, that is a safe space for ALL minorities, not just the groups you and your friends happen to belong to, do your due diligence to your black brothers and sisters and keep our names and our issues out your fucking mouths over forum bullshit. Or else you can get kicked off too.

This is another reason I’m fed up to the moon, and I will declare publicly that my staff team, particularly the ones of you who warned us for literally months that we would be strung up by some of these bad faith actors and trolls who always hijack these conversations, you were right. You were bang on right. And I’m sorry for not heeding the warnings. The sheer disingenuousness that runs concurrent through these conversations, and the inability for staff to check things like this because trying to do so and reroute things back to a course of productivity and understanding is picked apart with the most bad-faith readings imaginable and dismissed as tone-policing and ignoring the issues, even when it comes at the cost of stepping on other minorities in the process.

To say nothing of the fact that this behavior, as noted, runs rampant in the various community Discords too before it’s pushed back onto the forums writ large. A lot of feelings of anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction are had in places where we’re not present, or at the very least where we’re not staff. And it’s not like I don’t get it. Shit-talking and venting is gonna happen off-site. I’ve done it, you’ve done it. We’ve all done it. But it gets out of hand and makes it even harder for us to discern what is and isn’t good faith engagement when it gets self-perpetuating and unchallenged, and thus becomes part of the Discords’ culture, where even trans individuals can’t tell others to cool it a little bit without getting jumped on for "defending us." It gets perilous when you’ve got members from Era hopping on to Discords to stir up shit and then coming back here smiling in our face about the next blow-up that’s undoubtedly coming.

I’m not the only one this happens to. Every other staff member has at least several stories about some Discord or another opining that we’re legitimately out to get people, which only makes it that much harder to even engage in the chatting and discussions you supposedly want us to be involved in on site. People say they want us to be more active in threads. Who would want to do that when it’s clear a lot of folks just don’t like us as people? Like, why would I want to hang with someone who is not even intent on trying to coexist with me? I wouldn’t. Hell, you want to know why it’s easier for people to leave staff than it is for people to come aboard, even if we took out the interview process entirely? Because a lot of the people who turn us down just don’t want to deal with it. They see these threads, they see the attacks, they’re in the Discords reading what is posted, and they think “you must think I’m crazy to do this shit.”

Ultimately the fact that I have been afraid to even confront this at all because I thought I would be risking irrevocable damage to myself and the site, no matter the cost to my self-esteem and mental health, is indicative of just how much I was taken for a fool, and to everyone who does come into these threads and discussions with good faith and intentions, and to my Black Era family, I am sorry for denigrating myself like that for, again, well over a year. But it’s as I said in the Asian Era fallout, and it’s as I said with the Discord meeting, I’m done caring about platitudes and sucking up. I’m done caring about feelings, because most of y’all don’t give a fuck about mine anyway. I want ideas and results. I'm still prepared to work. So while you pick apart my post and tell me to go fuck myself, here’s what I plan to try and accomplish in the days and weeks going forward:

In the Asian Era meeting, a lot of discussion was had about the desire to actually ban people less for prejudices that could reasonably stem from ignorance rather than outright hatred, and that they wanted the chance to actually educate people on their particular issues and culture before we simply concluded they didn’t belong and tossed them out. I put in the idea of having an area of the forum, like a page, that is a huge compendium of resources related to minority issues, something that members can use as a tool of learning and a guide for engagement. It would include links to books, articles, videos, and other resources for better understanding issues that affect minorities, and it could be an on-going document that everyone contributes to. Not only do I think it’s a great idea in general to have this, but it will also hopefully cut down on disingenuous JAQing off in threads themselves, where minorities have to answer basic-ass shit that someone could’ve just read up on before they decided to engage a thread. I got a few PMs and some forum bookmarks that I want to use to start, but it’s going to need some work and research.

And to TransEra, you still are owed an explanation about what we’re going to do going forward regarding how we handle games like Cyberpunk. I don’t know if it’s been said before, but what we will do is directly oversee the OTs for such games and directly jump in to mitigate any ridiculous hype that is occurring at the cost of inclusion of minorities’ participation in such threads. So quicker and stricter bans for dismissiveness, for #oppressedgamer talk, and any of that nonsense will happen, as well as more thread consolidations. Hogwarts is coming up and it's our chance to head this situation off at the pass. Just as well, JK Rowling has been a subject of contention. Staff have been talking about whether or not to mitigate, if not outright ban Harry Potter talk for months now, which was actually a pleasant surprise to some of the Discord meeting participants. I want staff to get together as soon as possible and make a definitive ruling on how we are to deal with the franchise’s presence on this forum, and announce it to you all.

The last thing in general is regarding staff accountability, which is another thing that came up in the Discord meeting. Hecht has been spearheading these efforts already, but in short, what I want to do is solidify new rules for engagement in contentious threads on part of staff, protocol for when shit hits the fan because of their words and behavior, review protocols to undertake to establish where things went wrong, and measures of punishment for when a staffer continues to fuck up or goes past the pale, including immediate dismissals if it gets to that point in the future. I want these done ASAP and shared with you all as well, so you can know for certain that we are not above being beholden to stricter standards.

So that’s what I wanna do. Fuck all the bullshit. Fuck all the charges. At this point, it isn’t helping. What will help is me getting to work and implementing these things, so I’m going to work. You’re free to suggest things to help with that, and I’ll bring them back to staff. You’re also free to keep calling us incompetent and bigots. Again, I don’t care, but I’m not listening and internalizing that shit anymore.

At this point in Era’s lifespan, my tenure is the most uncertain it’s ever been. I’ve given all I’ve got, and my efforts, my beliefs, my intents, are not reciprocated in kind by way too many people to make it worth it. The three things above are what I want to absolutely finish before I think about walking away. I think I owe you all at least that. Don’t consider this a formal resignation though, because things can always change. If Era gets to a point where I am not obligated to take a bunch of mental anguish everytime something goes wrong, where I am not obligated to sit and allow people to talk to me like I’m any ol’ worthless nicca in the street, then sure, I’ll stay aboard. If that cannot happen, if staff are not going to be respected for the Herculean effort of trying to create the kind of large-scale online space that, as far as I know, does not and never has existed, if staff are going to continue to receive shit until they just burn out and shut down while being told they don’t deserve better just as human beings, then I’m gone. I’ve fucking had enough.

To everyone throughout my tenure who has reached out to any of staff, who has said they appreciate our efforts, who has come up to talk to us because they trusted that we genuinely want to make Era something special, and who have engaged in these threads in good faith, thank you. To those who are just here to have a go at staff, who think that the gall to volunteer our time for this place means it is open season on us, to those who think that we are your punching bags?

Pound sand.

She mad.

 

Indeed. How [USER=47794]SubvertedTrope[/USER] is avoiding bans is very much reminding me of how [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] did the same. In both cases, minority communities sending all kinds of alarm bells. Only to be ignored.

And in [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER]'s case, it taking stuff BEING FOUND OFF SITE FOR HIM TO BE PERMED.

What will it take for the community to be actually listened to regarding SubvertedTrope? Does something need to be found?

What if nothing is?

Will we then find out what would have happened to [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] had nothing been found from off-site?

Because yeah, I'm sorry to go there, but I can't help but be reminded of that, especially precisely because everything involving [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] is so recent, to see minority concerns not only be brushed off AGAIN but have those same members banned for ADDRESSING THEIR CONCERNS IN A THREAD THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FOR THAT, while the instigator gets off scott-free... It would almost be more dishonest NOT to make the comparison, ESPECIALLY SINCE even if others don't actually say it, they're no doubt thinking it and it's no doubt part of the reason why they're feeling the reason they are, why they're so scared and afraid of what's happening, and raising the alarm bells, so I'll speak for them in that case, because everything, EVERYTHING is wrong here, and as terrified as I am, I nonetheless can't remain silent in this situation, that absolutely would be the wrong thing to do, so here I am.

I'm sorry, but this has gone past the "innocent mistakes" phase.

There was time to discuss that.

Plenty of it.

Plenty of opportunities given.

They were swatted away.

Like, we gave them opportunities regarding [USER=1740]Sibylus[/USER]'s ban. That perhaps, maybe, they're telling the truth about that.

But now we're supposed to believe them with [USER=5396]Apa504[/USER] to?

After what happened with [USER=1740]Sibylus[/USER]?

After what SO VERY NEARLY HAPPENED WITH [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER]?

After all the other bans that have happened in the thread?

After all the members that have been banned, while those who gaslight or dismiss the concerns or otherwise troll or minimize the concerns of TransEra, MuslimEra, AsianEra, and other communities are allowed to do that for PAGES ON END?

That they DON'T GET BANNED.

But yet [USER=1740]Sibylus[/USER] was banned for "not wanting to be here."
But yet apparently with [USER=5396]Apa504[/USER] coming back from a self-requested ban is now a relevant reason to consider banning everyone.

And then there was how staff put [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] being nice to them in private OVER EVERY LAST ALARM BELL TRANS-ERA AND OTHER COMMUNITIES WERE GIVING IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ALIKE AND HE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT HAD STUFF NOT BEEN FOUND FROM OFF-SITE OF ALL PLACES?

And of course, that's also ignoring this ALL EXTENDS BEFORE [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] as well.

There was everything that happened to AsianEra, and MuslimEra, the prior failed communications with various communities that LEAD TO THREADS LIKE THIS EXISTING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

There's only so much benefit of the doubt that can be given before one is forced, even if one doesn't want to consider it, even if it's the last thing you want to believe, nonetheless, there's only so much doubt that can be given before the act of malice must cross one's mind.

And I don't want to assume that myself yet. I'm not there yet, and I AM NOT SAYING THAT.

But consider what happened to AsianEra & MuslimEra, the reason this thread even exists in the first place, and their concerns apparently falling on deaf ears given not only were their particular concerns not addressed, but we find ourselves in such a similar situation to begin with.

Consider the case of [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER], who there were so many alarm bells being rung about, but which were being ignored and likely would have continued to have been, if something hadn't been found from off-site.

Consider how so many people are banned for just venting and addressing their concerns while Poodlestrike is still safe for telling someone to pound sand, and, just like how alarm bells were raised about [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER], they also are about SubvertedTrope, only to be ignored again.

There's only so much one can take before one begins to suspect malice.

I'm not sure I'm there myself, and I'm not saying I am, I don't want to say that, I don't want to think that or even imply it.

But what I will say is that the staff's continued choice of action and inaction are not helping themselves by any measure on that front, so if that's not the message they want to send, which indeed may possibly be the case, but in that case, they need to think long and hard about who they do and don't ban, what action they do or don't take, because it only becomes harder by the hour, nevermind the day, to not suspect malice at this point, and that is on the staff, and no one else because they are ultimately to blame for their choices so if people feel they're deliberately being targeted, it's on staff to address those concerns instead of simply banning anyone who voices them.

How long would it be reasonable until members CAN START SUGGESTING MALICE?

Especially considering what happened to AsianEra and MuslimEra, with many of their concerns not met and us being in this predicament in the first place?

How long would it take TransEra to suggest the same?

Because this thread has existed for MONTHS NOW, LITERAL MONTHS, WITH NO SIGN OF ACTUAL CHANGE FROM THE STAFF.

SO HOW LONG UNTIL MEMBERS CAN AT LEAST ADDRESS CONCERNS OF MALICE, HOW LONG CAN PEOPLE BRING THOSE PERFECTLY VALID FEELINGS GIVEN ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED, UP?

HOW MANY CHANCES DOES THE STAFF GET?

How long until we CAN suggest that?

Months? Years? Never?

Because I'm saying I believe that myself. I'm not there myself yet.

But like I said, I'm an INCREDIBLY EMPATHETIC PERSON, TO A FAULT.

So while I'm not there, I'm perfectly understanding of why others would be, and don't think people should be banned for addressing such concerns and having such grievances, given both all that has and what has not happened in these past months.

If that's not the case, staff has had months to convey that to members.

Clearly, some think they have failed in that regard.

And if that's the case, they should be able to address that in safety, AT THE VERY LEAST IN THIS OF ALL THREADS IF NOWHERE ELSE.

Or at least that's how I feel, for however little that is worth.

Again, to be perfectly clear, I myself am not saying that I think any staff member is acting with active malice here, intentional or otherwise.

But given everything that's happened these past six months and hell even earlier, and STILL SEEING THE SAME THINGS HAPPEN TO THESE DAYS, HAVING THE SAME EXACT CONCERNS, I understand if after a period of over half a year that some members would begin to question if staff is indeed acting in good faith whatsoever, and feel they should be able to voice those concerns, even if they come off as hurtful, because ultimately what's behind such barbed words is layers upon layers of hurt itself, of they themselves being hurt or ones they know or care about being hurt or wronged in the past, and that shouldn't be ignored, or be off-limits, as it's a sign that there's a clear problem, a huge one, and we can't begin to fix it if we don't let the whole picture, even all the ugliest bits, come out into the open, and let that hurt be fully addressed and grievances be heard.

Sorry, had to go take a much-needed shave. In any case, to be perfectly clear about the edits I've made about this post:

I, IN NO WAY, CONDONE CALLING MEMBERS OF THE STAFF RACIST, TRANSPHOBIC, SEXIST, ETC.

Of course that's naturally not cool.

However...

After months of inaction, and broken promises.
After months of the same mistakes being repeated again, and again, and again.
After community after community and member after member no longer feels welcome and leaves this site.

All this, as threads like this very thread itself, have now been going on for months itself, in theory to help address those exact issues.

Despite those months having passed by, many feel we're in the same if not a worse position than when this thread began.

Due to those same promises still being broken and promised action not taken.
Due to the same mistakes being repeated again and again and again.
Due to only more and more members and more and more communities leaving.

I, IN NO WAY, CONDONE CALLING THE STAFF RACIST/TRANSPHOBIC/SEXIST/ETC.

I DON'T CONDONE THAT IN ANY WAY.

...But I understand it. I don't condone it. But I understand those that would.

And indeed, even if you do not condone it yourself, when put into perspective like that, when we've been dealing with this since THE SUMMER IF NOT BEFORE, even while condemning it, it's very hard not to UNDERSTAND it at the same type, if you have the slightest thread of empathy, if you just take a moment to consider we've been dealing with this since the middle of the year, and now at the end of it, find ourselves at much the same place, in the same exact thread in fact (since that, as it was then, is one of the few places granted to us to express such feelings).

So I believe that's an accurate summary of where I'm personally at:

I, IN NO UNCERTAIN WORDS, DO NOT CONDONE CALLING THE STAFF TRANSPHOBIC/SEXIST/RACIST/ETC. I CONDONE THAT IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER.

...But I understand that.

And I think that's the important part here. That we could deal with less defensiveness, even if that's the hardest thing in the world to do sometimes, hell, I know that firsthand and know I'm hardly one to speak on that subject, but precisely because of that, I've both experienced and learned that it's indeed true, that while it can be so INCREDIBLY hard to overcome those instincts to be defensive and the need the retaliate and fire back when we feel that someone has wronged or hurt us in some way, nonetheless, some times the best thing to do is to listen and see why others feel those ways and are using such charged language to begin with, that what makes them speak with such poisoned tongues and sharp words, and, even when it hurts us ourselves, try to be more understanding.

So one final time:
I in no no way condone calling the staff racist/transphobic/sexist, or any such thing. I do not.

But I understand where those who would levy such accusations are coming from, and I wish there was more of that understanding from the staff, even if the bans are themselves justified, I nonetheless wish there was some transparent, statement of understanding of the pain behind those words from the staff, and, yeah, just understanding of where people are coming from in general, more understanding of why they're hurt, why they're saying the things they are, and some clear demonstration that staff gets that, and why we should believe them, especially as this thread's mere existence for half-a-year makes that very, incredibly difficult for some, to see the same mistakes and issues play out time and time again, to have a clear statement that address not just the CURRENT situation but also the PAST as well and how all this will be rectified, something like that, that's what I wish for and, in absence of such a thing for months on end, while I cannot condone people calling the staff transphobic/racist/sexist/etc, I understand it. I understand it.

That's all.

Again, yet another example: you feel ND time to thread ban yuoke for this, but do nothing to SubvertedTrope. Who is I'd no way being "misrepresented" here and did exactly what they're accuses of since they started posting in this thread.

And again, why am I too not threadbanned under the same logic? Because again, I've done the same fucking thing, but no bsn here?

Do you guys just secretly love me or something or is some sad attempt to make amends for my prior ban or something? Because no matter what, it's really weird.

Again, NOT THAT I WANT TO BE BANNED IN ANY WAY.
I DON'T.

That site really needs a safe word

its right here if you want to read it in context (which is important)

Indeed. Like, our lives fucking depend on smelling out this bullshit. Because unfortunately, there are people out there who want us dead or otherwise want to make us miserable, so we have to quickly learn to how to sniff out those kind of people, before they can tell their nonsense.

Obviously, I knew nothing about him being a Trumper or anything. But just his past behavior in the past few days was enough outside of that.

In addition, while we members don't have access to ban histories, the staff definitely does? Why was that not checked, at all, any point?

And ban history aside, that still leaves the question of why the concerns of TransEra were completely ignored and the staff gave so much deference and benefit of doubt to this person. Why? Even without their ban history, why put so much weight on them and completely ignore the concerns of TransEra? Why did this one person mean so much to begin with?

And that was of course then, which was scary enough.

But now with hindsight, it's even scarier.

Because why exactly was Black Chamber making so many threads on Cyberpunk, why did they want to be the face of the OT, why did they have their own discord, why did they ignore the concerns of transgender members in the OT instead of just saying that a paragraph was supposedly planned to be in an OT all along?

Because with all these revelations about them being a Trumper and not giving a fuck and all that, it seems pretty clear: they were indeed doing every bit of it on purpose, almost certainly to deliberately stoke hostilities against the transgender community here.

Because think about it.

We know they're a Trumper and they don't give a fuck.

And due to people like Android Sophia we knew there was indeed intended to be a paragraph to support transgender members in the actual OT supposedly.

But that's something Black Chamber themselves refused to say and just beat around the bush on.

Why?

Knowing they're a Trumper, it makes perfect sense.

The whole goal along all along was to foster hostilities against the transgender community here.

And just looking at the reactions in the Night City Wire OT, with how many people he had on his side on singing and his praises and all that, he got pretty damn close to doing just that.

Not just close.

Since transgender members have actually left the site due to all this, you could even say he was successful in that goal.

And that's disgusting and unacceptable.

Because the staff had multiple points they could have put a stop to all of this, even before his history came out.

He made a gameplan, to play the longgame, and the sad thing is, despite being permed, he still won, by creating those schisms and getting multiple transgender members of the community to leave, and that's purely on the staff for not nipping it in the bud and actually taking the time to listen to the transgender community, ban history or no ban history, tweets or no tweets, or whatever.

They could have just listened to the concerns of the transgender community, instead of putting the interests of some nobody OT-starter and making backroom deals with them instead and putting all of that above the transgender community.

They could have just checked their own fucking backlogs.

They could have done so many things, but they failed to do each and every one of them.

There were so many things that could have been done.

So many. But they failed at every point instead.

There was a point I trusted the staff. The staff themselves can vouch for this if they have access to my post report history because for a while, I made a point of trying to remember to thank them for their hard work whenever I reported a post. I didn't always remember to do that. But I tried my best.

But those days are gone.

Because this is a fuckup beyond fuckups.

All trust I have for the staff of this site is completely gone.

Just zip. Zero. Zilch.

Because even before their actual history came out, there were still so many points, so many opportunities to avoid every bit of this.

But none of them were taken and Black Chamber was given the benefit of the doubt over the transgender community, all their suspicions and misgivings, everything.

And that's something I can not easily forget or forgive.

THAT SAID, I am thankful and very appreciative for being unbanned early. I truly do appreciate that.

But in the name of full transparency, I feel like I have to share the ban appeal tickets I made while I was banned, which I never got a single response to on any single one of them, and which I do feel, especially collectively, do a very good job of summing up why this was all handled so terribly, even without knowing about any of Black Chamber's ban history or tweets or anything and I just wouldn't feel right if this wasn't shared for all to see, as yeah, it really demonstrates how I feel and why this was so badly handled, revealing ban history or tweets or no (dashes indicate the end of one post I made in my ban appeal and the start of another new post in the appeal ticket):

And I do realize there is indeed some hostility in what I'm about to quote. But I hope that can be forgiven because this was originally written in the context of a ban appeal thread and is just me quoting it verbatim, with nothing hidden because I don't want to hide that and the whole point is honesty and transparency here, so I hope that can be understood in that context and not lead to anything or be taken outside of the context of a then-banned member naturally being frustrated at their situation and being powerless to change what was happening and going on outside in the forum while they were banned, desperately wanting to say so, SO very much and just not being able and being tremendously frustrated by what I was seeing and reading and not being able to do anything about that, and so yeah, I hope it can be understood in that context.

With that said, here's everything I said in my ban appeal thread for my situation:

"
Hello. ShironRedshift. I'd like to appeal my ban. Well, no. I'm not sure you can call this a ban appeal exactly. Because I know what I did was wrong and crossed the line. I fully admitted that when I made the posts I did.

However, I nonetheless want the staff to hear my side and how it feels like your leaving minority members like me with no options. That no matter which option we choose, civility, hostility, or anywhere between, that they're ALL bad and ALL lead to negative consequences in their own way.

But like I said in later posts in the same thread, it's a case of learned helplessness.

That civility has gotten nowhere. That the whole point of keeping the threads on Cyberpunk open, according to the mods, was to among other things help to educate others on transgender issues.

But not only has that not happened, but the whole disagreement that lead into the confrontation that lead to be getting banned in the first place was, nevermind the subject of education in general, it didn't even touch on that, but it all started with a dispute with rather a single paragraph, a single paragraph was too much or not.

Which, as it turns out, the plan was to include that paragraph...?

But the person who will be the OP of the thread denied that for reasons unknown and strung them along for no discernible reason in that case and just increased hostilities all around.

Many tried to be more civil than me in the initial (locked) thread that ultimately lead to nothing. Just more dismissive responses, as has been the case since this whole saga with this game began.

Which then lead to me seeing that, seeing so many wonderful people trying their best to be so incredibly, incredibly patient, and it not working and them only being dismissed. That even if the mods indeed banned many of the offenders, many more just came to replace them in return. Certainly no learning was happening.

Which in turn lead to my hostile response. Which I knew wouldn't fix anything either. Which I knew would lead to be being banned as I said, so I can't truly complain.

But at the same time, what was I to do?

Civility is a complete failure that lead to nothing.

And hostility obviously is also nonetheless both wrong and lead to people such as myself being banned.

And then of course there's the option of just doing nothing.

But that just leads to a feeling of learned helplessness, uselessness, and depression, things I certainly don't need more of as I already struggle with social anxiety and depression and mental illness.

Just all options are bad in their own way.

Be civil? Nothing changes, and we keep going in circles.

Get hostile, and vent some of my true feelings? I get banned.

Give into helplessness? My anxiety and depression goes into overdrive?

What are people like me SUPPOSED TO DO?

Like, I'm honestly asking here.

I know what I said and did was wrong and crossed the line.

But civility was not working (and clearly continues to work, as the person I believe I was believe the person I responded to got a lesser ban for me and will potentially still share a role in creating the Cyberpunk OT despite their own ban, so what exactly does that say about where civility gets you in matters of transphobia and the like? That as long as your civil about and do it in a polite way you'll be comparatively rewarded? Surely that can't be the intended message, but it's the message that's sent regardless of whether it's intended or not).

And obviously hostility just leads to stuff like my own ban.

And doing nothing and just sitting passively while this goes on does nothing for my anxiety and depression?

So what is the answer?

Because I've got nothing.

Like I said, I can't honestly say this is an appeal for my ban, because I knew what would happen when I made that post and knew the risks.

But I don't know what in the world I'm supposed to do, because every possible option is bad, so that being the case, being surrounded by a variety of bad options, I just picked the bad option that would at least let me vent my feelings.

That's not a defense. I know it's not.

But this is a subject that needs to be handled better in general, is what I am saying I suppose.

How, I'm not sure.

But certainly it needs to be handled better than a way that only gives minority members such as myself 3 options (1. Be civil to our abusers while they're abusing us and maybe they're banned, maybe they're not, either way only to be replaced by others who don't care and go back to square one 2.) Vent our true feelings and get banned for it or 3.) Just be quiet and silent and give into learned helplessness and depression).

None of those options are good. Not a single one of them.

But as far as I can see it, those are the only three options minority members have.

Like, I'm not good at this type of thing (likely in part because of my social anxiety and autism, and like, I've mentioned this before I believe in certain post reports and stuff, that I myself used to be a moderator of a global large forum when I was a teenager, NarutoFan forums, around like, god, like 2007 or 2008, when Naruto was pretty much at the peak of its popularity, and I pretty much gave that power away and switched into being in the "Advisor" role for inactive staff precisely because among other things I realized I was no good at it and definitely didn't have the answers, so I'm certainly not one to give advice.

And bans in particular even then were one of the trickiest subjects that gave me the most anxiety even back then, because judging what crossed the line and what didn't and if it did cross the line exactly how much time it deserves and how stuff like prior bans should factor in or signs of changed behavior and so many other things, even with an entire mods-only board to discuss exactly that type of thing, there's just so many factors to consider that among the things that gave me the most anxiety about being a global moderator, bans were definitely at the top of the list and I was terrified of screwing them up.

But anyway, the point being, that having been there, I realize precisely how difficult being a moderator and making these decisions are, how it's just so very much incredibly gray so many times and there are no easy answers and it's just a bunch of unpaid people trying their best to make due with something incredibly stressful and not having any type of instruction manual and just trying to do their best. I feel that so much, having been in that position once upon a time on a site that, god, I can't remember how many active users it had at that time, but it had to at least rival this if not exceed it.

But at the same time, the status quo certainly cannot stand.

Because it only leaves minority members such as transgender individuals with three options, which all suck:

1.) Be civil to their oppressors and just wait for the mods to ban them, which the staff does a good job of doing, but doesn't do anything to make up for the hurt caused by them in the meantime and also doesn't take away from how for how each one that's banned, two more seem to crawl out of nowhere, just making the whole approach incredibly frustrating, when it's certainly not being met in return with civility and doesn't seem to lead to many of the promised opportunities for learning and growth.

2.) Let some of our true feelings flow and basically, in, uh, less than polite language, tell them to get lost, which just leads to we ourselves getting banned.

3.) Doing nothing. Which is just the thing. Nothing. And by it's very nature, changes nothing. Leading to stuff like feelings of learned helplessness, feelings of not belonging or not being cared about, feelings of anxiety or depression, and so forth.

None of these are good options, but they seem to be the only three on the table.

And that's what I'm asking to change.

I don't know how. Like I said, I've been in the position of being a global moderator in the past. I don't envy it. That's part of why I left, so I know it's kind of hypocritical for someone like me to ask for answers I couldn't find and just ran away from.

But nonetheless, I suppose this isn't so much an appeal for my ban, but for the sake of the transgender community, among so many communities on the site, such as AsianEra and what they're dealing with in the Monster Hunter threads and such (like even with Capcom itself admitting fault while trying to pass the blame and the movie itself potentially being banned in China, still trying to deny the racism. And of course they get banned, which is great, but that doesn't change how much hurt those posts cause in the first place, especially since it's the same problem of basically playing whack-a-mole), that something needs to change.

I don't know what those answers are.

And I really have no right to ask the staff to figure out stuff that I couldn't and ran away from myself when I was a mod (for much lesser problems in my case, because it wasn't even anything like transphobia or stuff like that I was fearful over how long to ban people over, but just your run of the mill flamewars over people getting to angry and hostile over who the best character in the series is and stuff like that and attacking each other over having the "wrong" opinion, just stuff like that was too much with my social anxiety).

Nonetheless, while I don't have the answers, I know this can't be sustained. So I'm using the opportunity hear to ask the mods to do just that. Because while I don't have the answers, the status quo can't go on, that's for sure.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day.

REAL NAME CENSORED

AKA ShironRedshift (and in the NarutoFan days aka Shiron and MeijinNoKori and IceMasterHitsugayaKun and Payaso Coronado along with a bunch of other names I've forgotten)

------------------------------------------

And I'd like to append this. Just look at what in the world happened when the Night City Wire thread was unlocked:

Post after post thanking the person who made a mockery of transgender member's concerns, apparently planning the whole time to have the paragraph they wanted in the OP while at the same time not just saying that and letting hostilities rise for no reason.

That person is getting post after post of thanks with no mention of transgender member concerns whatsoever:

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people a

[benjipwns]

I think that, in general, people have appreciated my presence in these matters before and that I have somewhat of a knack for community engagement

Y'all are going to be mad, but that's the secret at this point. ... most of it is going to be about the toll this has taken on me. No, I don't give a shit if you think this is inappropriately rerouting the conversation; I'm burnt out and subsequently apathetic. I've been holding on to a lot of this for over a year, and I'm going to get it off my chest now ... This thread will also be locked so you can't skip over it

I'm still exhausted from the Asian Era meeting

I also want to make it clear that ... I also want to further preface this by saying that

from my perspective, I'm getting pulled into some irrelevant shit for a discussion that I never actually volunteered for ... when the meeting was already underway that I finally told them to give me an invite to see if I could help. ... again I willingly volunteered

[nudemacusers]

edit: meant to hit modify instead of quote my bad 

these two posts remind me of something I was reading earlier in the thread:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/constructive-community-discussion.270630/post-54328819

Alright, so this is probably going to be my only post in the thread. It's not gonna be any PR speak, nor is it going to assuage anyone's feelings, staff or members. Y'all are going to be mad, but that's the secret at this point. It’ll be a recap of things, but most of it is going to be about the toll this has taken on me. No, I don't give a shit if you think this is inappropriately rerouting the conversation; I'm burnt out and subsequently apathetic. I've been holding on to a lot of this for over a year, and I'm going to get it off my chest now before I discuss what I want to do for ResetEra moving forward. However you take it is on you. This thread will also be locked so you can't skip over it, and it will be reopened in 10 minutes, approximately 9:40 PM EST.

Let's start with Black Chamber. I don't want to relitigate too much, but yeah, that was a fuck-up, and I apologize. Even if he wasn't a MAGA asshat, his inability to consider the feelings of trans members meant he should've lost right to the OT immediately at the bare minimum. I believe part of the unstated goal of ResetEra is that members take an ethical approach to expressing video game fandom, by which I largely mean not stepping on the toes of minorities who get the short end of the stick in a medium that is largely still a conservative, white-ass cesspool of juvenility. BC didn't do that, so fuck him. And Cyberpunk, that trash-ass game.

After that, Sophia decided on her own to enter talks with Trans Era members. That was fair, and I know she was in Discords with and friends with members who were hurt by what happened. At this point, I wasn't asked to be involved, and frankly I wasn't going to be initially. I'm still exhausted from the Asian Era meeting (more on that at the end), and I didn't feel like picking up something like that at the moment. But from what I understood, the meeting was going to be about Black Chamber and Cyberpunk, how to handle contentious OTs, the issues with egregious fan hype- shit that had to do with the immediate issue that had happened to Trans Era.

Imagine my fucking surprise then when Toxi PMd me about Ketkat out of nowhere.

Again. I am not part of the Trans Era Discord. I was never included or mentioned as wanting to participate in anything Sophia was organizing at that time. Ket had fuck all to do with the Cyberpunk issue since she was banned. So why, oh why, is anyone relitigating this bullshit to me, specifically, at this moment in time?

I didn't respond to it. Instead I let staff know about it, at which point another staffer admitted they'd been strung up about Ketkat on Discord. I called it what it was- a set up- and actually told us to disengage, that the talks were not going to be productive, and that it was going to blow up some way or another. There was a lot of back and forth about it, to which again I want to apologize to Sophia about, who took this endeavor on entirely by herself in an effort to fix things. Everything that has gone down is an absolute insult to her and her efforts, and I know my reluctance was another wrench in the works.

I also want to make it clear that I didn't say this with the attempt to paint every single trans person who is an Era member, or even the overwhelming majority of trans members, as problematic. Minorities as a whole are NOT the problem. The majority of us here all want the same goals at the end of the day, which is for ResetEra to be a place where minorities can comfortably discuss gaming from their unique points of view without the bullshit they face everywhere else on the Internet. Kyuuji, for example, has been an amazing force for getting these issues pushed to the forefront of the wider forum at large. But the unstated fact here is that a lot of the issues regarding the forum culture and the nature of our moderation are inexplicably tied into toxicity and long-held grudges, and some individuals will use genuine efforts to better the site as opportunities to harass staff, a lot of them not even being part of the aggrieved groups in question.

I also want to further preface this by saying that it is likely my belief that the meeting was about the Cyberpunk incident, when instead it was about previous grievances, was nothing more than the result of miscommunication. I wasn't there with Sophia for the majority of the planning, so I don't know anything that was discussed. But again, from my perspective, I'm getting pulled into some irrelevant shit for a discussion that I never actually volunteered for. So yeah, it smelled funny to me and thus I thought the talks were a bad idea.

But they went forward anyway, even with Sophia- whose mental health had already taken a downturn due to prior stress- pulling out because the rules for engagement that were apparently established beforehand weren't respected by a few individuals in the Discord, and made her personal situation worse. From the gist of the participants, things weren't going too well. I think that, in general, people have appreciated my presence in these matters before and that I have somewhat of a knack for community engagement, so against my better judgement, against everything, and everyone- actual friends of mine- screaming at me not to do it, it is at that point when the meeting was already underway that I finally told them to give me an invite to see if I could help.

The beginning actually went pretty well! Ignoring sudden deluges of questions and the inconvenient timer, A.by, Banshee McSpook, Robin, and others were asking me questions, I would answer them to the best of my ability, and they would understand, regardless of whether or not the answers were what they wanted to hear. There were even a few laughs to be had. For a moment it was a genuine roundtable, and I was hopeful, especially since it was going to give me an opportunity to discuss things that staff had been talking about regarding long-term solutions. I will also admit that again my overall lack of participation in the planning phases meant that some of my answers and understanding of the purpose of the meeting meant I was inaccurate or ignorant to some of the things that were brought up, and a few members felt I had just been tossed in there (and I want to again appreciate the concern, but again I willingly volunteered last minute to talk.)

I was eventually faced with a Google Doc of demands/bullet points, and Ketkat jumped in around this time. As I had figured out before then, this really wasn't about the latest kerfuffle. Not fully. It was partially about Ket; indeed the first three points of the list revolved around her to various degrees. After some beating around the bush, I told her straight to her face that she wasn't coming back and that any demands folks had regarding her were totally non-negotiable.

That's when and why things blew up. We didn’t get to the rest of the list or any other questions various folks may have had. I faced a mix of angry venting, the dismissal of my identity (I'm NB), deliberately bad-faith readings of my posts, and petty snipes, particularly from Papa Santanas, who is also permed and thus I don't have the pleasure of fucking bodying them personally for engaging in an overstepping of bounds that I will talk about at length later on. Now note, the anger from various folks didn't personally bother me; I understand, especially because I know real life 2020 shit is compounding on top of the problems people have with staff and the forum, and thus I don't mind if people need to vent.

However, Ket also tried to paint me as a liar for my participation in the debacle back in November 2019 on top of this, which is fucking ironic because I am one of the few reasons she even got a third (not even a second) chance in the first place. Let it be known- without me jumping in that day, and without me having it out with staff about how things went down, Ket would've still been gone the first time. So any problem she, or anyone else who is in her circle, has with me on that front, you can miss me with that. I don’t give a fuck.

Regardless, once things settled, I was disingenuously asked by Ket if I had anything to say to everything that I had been privy to, all of the venting and rage and sarcasm, as if there is some magical response anyone can craft in the face of tens of posts of stream-of-consciousness to make it all better. And I will reiterate the same sentiment to you all.

No.

I don't.

Because while I can jump into threads and mediate, and answer questions, and engage with ideas, and take things back to staff, and field PMs, and remind my team of outstanding issues and tickets and things of that nature, and further codify new lessons in the rules and staff policies, I can't eliminate the hurt, the grudges, the feelings of betrayal, and the resulting toxicity coming from all corners of this blasted website whenever shit goes down, a lot of which is from people's personal lives or involves fights I was never privy to, and it was wrong for me to try to involve myself. I'm not a fucking Magical Negro and I'm tired of trying to play one at the expense of my mental health when, ultimately, none of this shit matters.

Because again, all of this? It's not REALLY about Cyberpunk. It's not even really about a few dumb bans and Poodle's dismissive "pound sand" remark to A.by (which shouldn't have been done and was uncalled for, no matter how he feels about it). We ALL need to be honest about that. It's about people being angry, and people not liking each other, and people unhappy with the community demographics and how those demographics inform the atmosphere, and about how personally betrayed people feel when their friends get banned, which staff can’t actually do anything about. And if it's all really about that, then individuals need to ask themselves if Era, even at its best, can give them the online community they desire. Because if nothing else, if Era cannot be a safe space, if staff- if I, Nepenthe- have failed that fucking badly, then it's not fair to any minorities to stay in a hostile environment, and for those people, I will not tell them to stay. It is selfish to beg people to put up with shit they don't have to put up with for the veneer of harmony. I don't even do that with some of my Discord friends who don't post on Era anymore, so why would I do that to others?

(Note: This is ACTUALLY what people are referring to when they discuss the "admin who told them to fuck off." Notice how fucking weasely that characterization is? I never once told anyone to fuck off.)

So afterwards I talked a little more with A.by, specifically about how her ticket was dismissed and about receiving an apology from the staffers who signed off on it. I told her that was perfectly fair because it was unprofessional, and would take it up with relevant staff to get apologies underway. That's where things ended.

Actually, no it's not, because I got pinged hours later- literally around TEN HOURS- by Hexe regarding the above, who said something to the effect of "customer service speak strikes again!" At that point, I had had it. I had fucking had it. I made a crack about Hexe not having the spine to say some shit like that to me on the day of my birthday, reiterated my stance, thanked TransEra for allowing me to talk with them, and requested politely not be pinged again. Hexe then said something to the effect of "you have to understand that we are just angry, and the fact that you're receiving angry responses is not your fault."

Then don't fucking act like it's my fault. Don't insult me. Don't get your lick in hours later and fall back on how you feel or any perceived slights you have that have nothing to do with me, as if merely being upset allows you the moral high ground to treat anyone any kind of way. I won't mince words- this is simply justifying verbal abuse, no two ways about it. And this shit happens all the time to staff, and any members who can see the verbal abuse and the justifications for what it is and who then get caught in the crossfire. At that point, Robin ended it. Some time later on, me and Alice were forcibly kicked.

And you know how I'm fucking right about all of this? You know how I have ground to say this despite being a staffer who should "shut up and listen" and not "tone police?" You know how some of this behavior is NOT okay? I woke up that next morning to a whole-ass three apologies from participants, two of whom were Robin and A.by! A.by apologized for how angry she got (which, again, I say to her that anger is okay. Venting is okay, healthy even! Everything she said to me personally was fair game and I will stick by that) and Robin was dismayed about how the talks were unproductive and ultimately nasty because of those few rabblerousers.

(Robin, btw, PM'd me during the original Trans Week debacle to check up on me. She is legit a good person and is invited permanently to my cookouts.)

The other apology, I will not name unless the person wants me to for the sake of their privacy because of what happened to them after the fact (but they are also absolutely lovely and I wanna talk with them again): they said they received pushback from the Discord for even daring to suggest that treating me, Sophia, and Alice with a modicum of basic human dignity for walking up in there and trying to work things out was unthinkable, and that in reality we deserved everything coming to us.

Imagine how shitty I felt for this person, someone who wanted to help mend relations, who was actually excited about some of the stuff I was able to talk about, someone who wasn't even around for the whole Ketkat thing, being told that their concern about some members' behavior was inappropriate simply because we are staffers and thus we are the enemy. Imagine how shitty I felt hearing that, cementing my original belief that- yes- I had walked right into a trap beget by a few assholes hijacking an important moment against my own better judgement.

Alas, here we are, once again, where unaddressed anger and dumb, unforced errors on part of staff have resulted in yet another one of these blow ups. Yes, the ban on Sibylus was wrong in the way it was conducted, and no amount of staff frustration can make that one okay. So I apologize; the ticket was sent in and we’ve reduced the ban and updated the banner to be more accurate and professional. And again, I know none of this is what anyone wants to hear (but I'm not in a placating mood anyway), and yet people want to know, especially in the wake of what was done to Sibylus and A.By’s PM, is how can Trans Era trust staff? Indeed, Papa said some backhanded bullshit during the meeting like "is there anyone on staff who can properly represent their community?"

So, you want to talk about minority communities and how they're represented? Let's talk about them! Specifically Black ERA! My friends, nay- my family. Y'all ain't put them in your mouths a lot during this entire time. Because you know you can't (or you've forgotten our existence. Not the first time you've excluded us).

Black ERA exists in a space that is just as hostile to them as it is for Trans ERA. They put up with cracka-ass nonsense constantly, a lot of which is from folks who also happen to be LGBT. They have dealt with a staff that has overlooked their concerns and has been ignorant to the issues, philosophies, and culture surrounding blackness and all various black cultures. They too had a meeting, the first one on the forums proper. While staff in general were involved, me and Mist took the reins. We ran back and forth between both parties to organize how the meeting was to be conducted, took feedback, arranged solutions on the fly, all in an effort to let them speak. And speak they did.

Changes happened within reason. AAVE language bans largely stopped. Bans for anti-black racism and pro-cop sentiments were largely helmed by black staff and given the proper punishments they deserved, and in general we started treating that more seriously overall. A lot of bullshit “hostility” reports being directed to black members were batted away. And we have allowed more leeway to black members to go in on stupid, white-ass shit. Has it solved literally everything regarding the culture of Era? Is Era a haven where black members can exist freely without any worry of facing any anti-black sentiments? Well, no; just look at the last few pages of this thread. Overall, Era still is a space dominated by whiteness, which is inevitable by sheer demographic force and is something we cannot change unless we start banning white folks en masse (and everyone understands this won’t happen). There are still some bans that Black Era and the BCC Discord have problems with to this day. I actually got into a protracted slapfight about one ban that I personally enacted, and they are free to tell it themselves in here if they want to however they want to tell it.

But what cannot be said is that I did not try, that Mist and the rest of staff did not try. It cannot be said that we don’t care. It cannot be said that I was incompetent. It cannot be said that I go to bat for them just for the woke points. I cannot be said that they don’t have full trust in me as a black staffer to handle the forum to the best of my ability. And that is what is missing-- trust, and the understanding that there is only so much that individual staffers can do and change on a whim not just because of the forum structure, but because of the people who inhabit it, trust and understanding that our hearts are in the right place even if we cannot push as far as we want to go or achieve every single point on a bullet list that some members want, trust and understanding that if we can’t deliver on something, or even if we get it wrong, it’s not because we hate Black Era because they’re black. They understand that this is a working relationship regarding an imperfect hand being dealt, and that we service them with the intent to make a better space for them to the best of our abilities, inch by inch, day by day.

So I will stand here and declare with pride and confidence that I have done right by Black Era members, and that I have taken these same exact methods and attitudes with me to other communities, including Trans Era. But the fact remains that my efforts just aren't reciprocated in kind.

You want to talk about how minorities here are chased away by staff? Well, where the fuck is the thought for Black Era members when you all use anti-police and black power rhetoric in an effort to foolishly demonstrate your contempt for staff? Where the fuck is your thought for Black Era when you start talking about MLK? Where the fuck is your thought for Black Era when you are NOWHERE to be found defending them when political armchair analysts shit on black people for being low-information voters, homophobes, or saboteurs of elections because they don’t want to vote for candidates that are pro-police? Where the fuck is your thought for Black Era when you co-opt our pain, our issues, our realities, solely for scoring points in some nonsnse internet drama? You want to know one of the reasons why a lot of Black Era doesn’t really engage with you all at this point in time with the exception of a few threads and their community thread? Look in a fucking mirror. Papa did that shit in the meeting too, and again I’m mad they’re permed because I can’t say this to their face. I’m paraphrasing, but this is what she said:

“Imagine being black or Asian and coming to the conclusion that staff just outright hate you for being a minority.”

This right here? Look at it. This is pure, unadulterated crackery. The whitest whitery that ever did white. This is Super Saiyan Blue Karen. It is some of the most uncolored bullshit I could have encountered in a meeting that had absolutely nothing to do with people of color in the first place!

So shame on those of you responsible for the shit you have been pulling, and the shit you pulled the last time during the Asian Era blow-up (Yeah, don’t think I forgot that purple Punisher logo), and every other time we’ve come to this point. I’m sure you’ve been seeing perms for the equation of anything that goes on on ERA to the reality of being black in America. Hello. That was my doing, and I don’t regret it. I don’t care what mistakes we have made, and I don’t even care what bigoted bullshit game companies have put out at this point. You are not George Floyd. You are not Breonna Taylor. You are not any of the myriad of black victims (many of which are trans) who have been legitimately lost to the spectre of white supremacy.

And again, this isn’t the first time this has happened- I’ve seen y’all try to gaslight about that and act like this is new. It ain’t new. What’s new is that this is the first time that I and Black Era are actually checking your asses in public. If you want this to be a forum that takes into account ACTUAL intersectionality, that is a safe space for ALL minorities, not just the groups you and your friends happen to belong to, do your due diligence to your black brothers and sisters and keep our names and our issues out your fucking mouths over forum bullshit. Or else you can get kicked off too.

This is another reason I’m fed up to the moon, and I will declare publicly that my staff team, particularly the ones of you who warned us for literally months that we would be strung up by some of these bad faith actors and trolls who always hijack these conversations, you were right. You were bang on right. And I’m sorry for not heeding the warnings. The sheer disingenuousness that runs concurrent through these conversations, and the inability for staff to check things like this because trying to do so and reroute things back to a course of productivity and understanding is picked apart with the most bad-faith readings imaginable and dismissed as tone-policing and ignoring the issues, even when it comes at the cost of stepping on other minorities in the process.

To say nothing of the fact that this behavior, as noted, runs rampant in the various community Discords too before it’s pushed back onto the forums writ large. A lot of feelings of anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction are had in places where we’re not present, or at the very least where we’re not staff. And it’s not like I don’t get it. Shit-talking and venting is gonna happen off-site. I’ve done it, you’ve done it. We’ve all done it. But it gets out of hand and makes it even harder for us to discern what is and isn’t good faith engagement when it gets self-perpetuating and unchallenged, and thus becomes part of the Discords’ culture, where even trans individuals can’t tell others to cool it a little bit without getting jumped on for "defending us." It gets perilous when you’ve got members from Era hopping on to Discords to stir up shit and then coming back here smiling in our face about the next blow-up that’s undoubtedly coming.

I’m not the only one this happens to. Every other staff member has at least several stories about some Discord or another opining that we’re legitimately out to get people, which only makes it that much harder to even engage in the chatting and discussions you supposedly want us to be involved in on site. People say they want us to be more active in threads. Who would want to do that when it’s clear a lot of folks just don’t like us as people? Like, why would I want to hang with someone who is not even intent on trying to coexist with me? I wouldn’t. Hell, you want to know why it’s easier for people to leave staff than it is for people to come aboard, even if we took out the interview process entirely? Because a lot of the people who turn us down just don’t want to deal with it. They see these threads, they see the attacks, they’re in the Discords reading what is posted, and they think “you must think I’m crazy to do this shit.”

Ultimately the fact that I have been afraid to even confront this at all because I thought I would be risking irrevocable damage to myself and the site, no matter the cost to my self-esteem and mental health, is indicative of just how much I was taken for a fool, and to everyone who does come into these threads and discussions with good faith and intentions, and to my Black Era family, I am sorry for denigrating myself like that for, again, well over a year. But it’s as I said in the Asian Era fallout, and it’s as I said with the Discord meeting, I’m done caring about platitudes and sucking up. I’m done caring about feelings, because most of y’all don’t give a fuck about mine anyway. I want ideas and results. I'm still prepared to work. So while you pick apart my post and tell me to go fuck myself, here’s what I plan to try and accomplish in the days and weeks going forward:

In the Asian Era meeting, a lot of discussion was had about the desire to actually ban people less for prejudices that could reasonably stem from ignorance rather than outright hatred, and that they wanted the chance to actually educate people on their particular issues and culture before we simply concluded they didn’t belong and tossed them out. I put in the idea of having an area of the forum, like a page, that is a huge compendium of resources related to minority issues, something that members can use as a tool of learning and a guide for engagement. It would include links to books, articles, videos, and other resources for better understanding issues that affect minorities, and it could be an on-going document that everyone contributes to. Not only do I think it’s a great idea in general to have this, but it will also hopefully cut down on disingenuous JAQing off in threads themselves, where minorities have to answer basic-ass shit that someone could’ve just read up on before they decided to engage a thread. I got a few PMs and some forum bookmarks that I want to use to start, but it’s going to need some work and research.

And to TransEra, you still are owed an explanation about what we’re going to do going forward regarding how we handle games like Cyberpunk. I don’t know if it’s been said before, but what we will do is directly oversee the OTs for such games and directly jump in to mitigate any ridiculous hype that is occurring at the cost of inclusion of minorities’ participation in such threads. So quicker and stricter bans for dismissiveness, for #oppressedgamer talk, and any of that nonsense will happen, as well as more thread consolidations. Hogwarts is coming up and it's our chance to head this situation off at the pass. Just as well, JK Rowling has been a subject of contention. Staff have been talking about whether or not to mitigate, if not outright ban Harry Potter talk for months now, which was actually a pleasant surprise to some of the Discord meeting participants. I want staff to get together as soon as possible and make a definitive ruling on how we are to deal with the franchise’s presence on this forum, and announce it to you all.

The last thing in general is regarding staff accountability, which is another thing that came up in the Discord meeting. Hecht has been spearheading these efforts already, but in short, what I want to do is solidify new rules for engagement in contentious threads on part of staff, protocol for when shit hits the fan because of their words and behavior, review protocols to undertake to establish where things went wrong, and measures of punishment for when a staffer continues to fuck up or goes past the pale, including immediate dismissals if it gets to that point in the future. I want these done ASAP and shared with you all as well, so you can know for certain that we are not above being beholden to stricter standards.

So that’s what I wanna do. Fuck all the bullshit. Fuck all the charges. At this point, it isn’t helping. What will help is me getting to work and implementing these things, so I’m going to work. You’re free to suggest things to help with that, and I’ll bring them back to staff. You’re also free to keep calling us incompetent and bigots. Again, I don’t care, but I’m not listening and internalizing that shit anymore.

At this point in Era’s lifespan, my tenure is the most uncertain it’s ever been. I’ve given all I’ve got, and my efforts, my beliefs, my intents, are not reciprocated in kind by way too many people to make it worth it. The three things above are what I want to absolutely finish before I think about walking away. I think I owe you all at least that. Don’t consider this a formal resignation though, because things can always change. If Era gets to a point where I am not obligated to take a bunch of mental anguish everytime something goes wrong, where I am not obligated to sit and allow people to talk to me like I’m any ol’ worthless nicca in the street, then sure, I’ll stay aboard. If that cannot happen, if staff are not going to be respected for the Herculean effort of trying to create the kind of large-scale online space that, as far as I know, does not and never has existed, if staff are going to continue to receive shit until they just burn out and shut down while being told they don’t deserve better just as human beings, then I’m gone. I’ve fucking had enough.

To everyone throughout my tenure who has reached out to any of staff, who has said they appreciate our efforts, who has come up to talk to us because they trusted that we genuinely want to make Era something special, and who have engaged in these threads in good faith, thank you. To those who are just here to have a go at staff, who think that the gall to volunteer our time for this place means it is open season on us, to those who think that we are your punching bags?

Pound sand.

She mad.

 

Indeed. How [USER=47794]SubvertedTrope[/USER] is avoiding bans is very much reminding me of how [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] did the same. In both cases, minority communities sending all kinds of alarm bells. Only to be ignored.

And in [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER]'s case, it taking stuff BEING FOUND OFF SITE FOR HIM TO BE PERMED.

What will it take for the community to be actually listened to regarding SubvertedTrope? Does something need to be found?

What if nothing is?

Will we then find out what would have happened to [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] had nothing been found from off-site?

Because yeah, I'm sorry to go there, but I can't help but be reminded of that, especially precisely because everything involving [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] is so recent, to see minority concerns not only be brushed off AGAIN but have those same members banned for ADDRESSING THEIR CONCERNS IN A THREAD THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE FOR THAT, while the instigator gets off scott-free... It would almost be more dishonest NOT to make the comparison, ESPECIALLY SINCE even if others don't actually say it, they're no doubt thinking it and it's no doubt part of the reason why they're feeling the reason they are, why they're so scared and afraid of what's happening, and raising the alarm bells, so I'll speak for them in that case, because everything, EVERYTHING is wrong here, and as terrified as I am, I nonetheless can't remain silent in this situation, that absolutely would be the wrong thing to do, so here I am.

I'm sorry, but this has gone past the "innocent mistakes" phase.

There was time to discuss that.

Plenty of it.

Plenty of opportunities given.

They were swatted away.

Like, we gave them opportunities regarding [USER=1740]Sibylus[/USER]'s ban. That perhaps, maybe, they're telling the truth about that.

But now we're supposed to believe them with [USER=5396]Apa504[/USER] to?

After what happened with [USER=1740]Sibylus[/USER]?

After what SO VERY NEARLY HAPPENED WITH [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER]?

After all the other bans that have happened in the thread?

After all the members that have been banned, while those who gaslight or dismiss the concerns or otherwise troll or minimize the concerns of TransEra, MuslimEra, AsianEra, and other communities are allowed to do that for PAGES ON END?

That they DON'T GET BANNED.

But yet [USER=1740]Sibylus[/USER] was banned for "not wanting to be here."
But yet apparently with [USER=5396]Apa504[/USER] coming back from a self-requested ban is now a relevant reason to consider banning everyone.

And then there was how staff put [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] being nice to them in private OVER EVERY LAST ALARM BELL TRANS-ERA AND OTHER COMMUNITIES WERE GIVING IN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ALIKE AND HE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT HAD STUFF NOT BEEN FOUND FROM OFF-SITE OF ALL PLACES?

And of course, that's also ignoring this ALL EXTENDS BEFORE [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER] as well.

There was everything that happened to AsianEra, and MuslimEra, the prior failed communications with various communities that LEAD TO THREADS LIKE THIS EXISTING IN THE FIRST PLACE.

There's only so much benefit of the doubt that can be given before one is forced, even if one doesn't want to consider it, even if it's the last thing you want to believe, nonetheless, there's only so much doubt that can be given before the act of malice must cross one's mind.

And I don't want to assume that myself yet. I'm not there yet, and I AM NOT SAYING THAT.

But consider what happened to AsianEra & MuslimEra, the reason this thread even exists in the first place, and their concerns apparently falling on deaf ears given not only were their particular concerns not addressed, but we find ourselves in such a similar situation to begin with.

Consider the case of [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER], who there were so many alarm bells being rung about, but which were being ignored and likely would have continued to have been, if something hadn't been found from off-site.

Consider how so many people are banned for just venting and addressing their concerns while Poodlestrike is still safe for telling someone to pound sand, and, just like how alarm bells were raised about [USER=14439]Black Chamber[/USER], they also are about SubvertedTrope, only to be ignored again.

There's only so much one can take before one begins to suspect malice.

I'm not sure I'm there myself, and I'm not saying I am, I don't want to say that, I don't want to think that or even imply it.

But what I will say is that the staff's continued choice of action and inaction are not helping themselves by any measure on that front, so if that's not the message they want to send, which indeed may possibly be the case, but in that case, they need to think long and hard about who they do and don't ban, what action they do or don't take, because it only becomes harder by the hour, nevermind the day, to not suspect malice at this point, and that is on the staff, and no one else because they are ultimately to blame for their choices so if people feel they're deliberately being targeted, it's on staff to address those concerns instead of simply banning anyone who voices them.

How long would it be reasonable until members CAN START SUGGESTING MALICE?

Especially considering what happened to AsianEra and MuslimEra, with many of their concerns not met and us being in this predicament in the first place?

How long would it take TransEra to suggest the same?

Because this thread has existed for MONTHS NOW, LITERAL MONTHS, WITH NO SIGN OF ACTUAL CHANGE FROM THE STAFF.

SO HOW LONG UNTIL MEMBERS CAN AT LEAST ADDRESS CONCERNS OF MALICE, HOW LONG CAN PEOPLE BRING THOSE PERFECTLY VALID FEELINGS GIVEN ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED, UP?

HOW MANY CHANCES DOES THE STAFF GET?

How long until we CAN suggest that?

Months? Years? Never?

Because I'm saying I believe that myself. I'm not there myself yet.

But like I said, I'm an INCREDIBLY EMPATHETIC PERSON, TO A FAULT.

So while I'm not there, I'm perfectly understanding of why others would be, and don't think people should be banned for addressing such concerns and having such grievances, given both all that has and what has not happened in these past months.

If that's not the case, staff has had months to convey that to members.

Clearly, some think they have failed in that regard.

And if that's the case, they should be able to address that in safety, AT THE VERY LEAST IN THIS OF ALL THREADS IF NOWHERE ELSE.

Or at least that's how I feel, for however little that is worth.

Again, to be perfectly clear, I myself am not saying that I think any staff member is acting with active malice here, intentional or otherwise.

But given everything that's happened these past six months and hell even earlier, and STILL SEEING THE SAME THINGS HAPPEN TO THESE DAYS, HAVING THE SAME EXACT CONCERNS, I understand if after a period of over half a year that some members would begin to question if staff is indeed acting in good faith whatsoever, and feel they should be able to voice those concerns, even if they come off as hurtful, because ultimately what's behind such barbed words is layers upon layers of hurt itself, of they themselves being hurt or ones they know or care about being hurt or wronged in the past, and that shouldn't be ignored, or be off-limits, as it's a sign that there's a clear problem, a huge one, and we can't begin to fix it if we don't let the whole picture, even all the ugliest bits, come out into the open, and let that hurt be fully addressed and grievances be heard.

Sorry, had to go take a much-needed shave. In any case, to be perfectly clear about the edits I've made about this post:

I, IN NO WAY, CONDONE CALLING MEMBERS OF THE STAFF RACIST, TRANSPHOBIC, SEXIST, ETC.

Of course that's naturally not cool.

However...

After months of inaction, and broken promises.
After months of the same mistakes being repeated again, and again, and again.
After community after community and member after member no longer feels welcome and leaves this site.

All this, as threads like this very thread itself, have now been going on for months itself, in theory to help address those exact issues.

Despite those months having passed by, many feel we're in the same if not a worse position than when this thread began.

Due to those same promises still being broken and promised action not taken.
Due to the same mistakes being repeated again and again and again.
Due to only more and more members and more and more communities leaving.

I, IN NO WAY, CONDONE CALLING THE STAFF RACIST/TRANSPHOBIC/SEXIST/ETC.

I DON'T CONDONE THAT IN ANY WAY.

...But I understand it. I don't condone it. But I understand those that would.

And indeed, even if you do not condone it yourself, when put into perspective like that, when we've been dealing with this since THE SUMMER IF NOT BEFORE, even while condemning it, it's very hard not to UNDERSTAND it at the same type, if you have the slightest thread of empathy, if you just take a moment to consider we've been dealing with this since the middle of the year, and now at the end of it, find ourselves at much the same place, in the same exact thread in fact (since that, as it was then, is one of the few places granted to us to express such feelings).

So I believe that's an accurate summary of where I'm personally at:

I, IN NO UNCERTAIN WORDS, DO NOT CONDONE CALLING THE STAFF TRANSPHOBIC/SEXIST/RACIST/ETC. I CONDONE THAT IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER.

...But I understand that.

And I think that's the important part here. That we could deal with less defensiveness, even if that's the hardest thing in the world to do sometimes, hell, I know that firsthand and know I'm hardly one to speak on that subject, but precisely because of that, I've both experienced and learned that it's indeed true, that while it can be so INCREDIBLY hard to overcome those instincts to be defensive and the need the retaliate and fire back when we feel that someone has wronged or hurt us in some way, nonetheless, some times the best thing to do is to listen and see why others feel those ways and are using such charged language to begin with, that what makes them speak with such poisoned tongues and sharp words, and, even when it hurts us ourselves, try to be more understanding.

So one final time:
I in no no way condone calling the staff racist/transphobic/sexist, or any such thing. I do not.

But I understand where those who would levy such accusations are coming from, and I wish there was more of that understanding from the staff, even if the bans are themselves justified, I nonetheless wish there was some transparent, statement of understanding of the pain behind those words from the staff, and, yeah, just understanding of where people are coming from in general, more understanding of why they're hurt, why they're saying the things they are, and some clear demonstration that staff gets that, and why we should believe them, especially as this thread's mere existence for half-a-year makes that very, incredibly difficult for some, to see the same mistakes and issues play out time and time again, to have a clear statement that address not just the CURRENT situation but also the PAST as well and how all this will be rectified, something like that, that's what I wish for and, in absence of such a thing for months on end, while I cannot condone people calling the staff transphobic/racist/sexist/etc, I understand it. I understand it.

That's all.

Again, yet another example: you feel ND time to thread ban yuoke for this, but do nothing to SubvertedTrope. Who is I'd no way being "misrepresented" here and did exactly what they're accuses of since they started posting in this thread.

And again, why am I too not threadbanned under the same logic? Because again, I've done the same fucking thing, but no bsn here?

Do you guys just secretly love me or something or is some sad attempt to make amends for my prior ban or something? Because no matter what, it's really weird.

Again, NOT THAT I WANT TO BE BANNED IN ANY WAY.
I DON'T.

That site really needs a safe word

its right here if you want to read it in context (which is important)

Indeed. Like, our lives fucking depend on smelling out this bullshit. Because unfortunately, there are people out there who want us dead or otherwise want to make us miserable, so we have to quickly learn to how to sniff out those kind of people, before they can tell their nonsense.

Obviously, I knew nothing about him being a Trumper or anything. But just his past behavior in the past few days was enough outside of that.

In addition, while we members don't have access to ban histories, the staff definitely does? Why was that not checked, at all, any point?

And ban history aside, that still leaves the question of why the concerns of TransEra were completely ignored and the staff gave so much deference and benefit of doubt to this person. Why? Even without their ban history, why put so much weight on them and completely ignore the concerns of TransEra? Why did this one person mean so much to begin with?

And that was of course then, which was scary enough.

But now with hindsight, it's even scarier.

Because why exactly was Black Chamber making so many threads on Cyberpunk, why did they want to be the face of the OT, why did they have their own discord, why did they ignore the concerns of transgender members in the OT instead of just saying that a paragraph was supposedly planned to be in an OT all along?

Because with all these revelations about them being a Trumper and not giving a fuck and all that, it seems pretty clear: they were indeed doing every bit of it on purpose, almost certainly to deliberately stoke hostilities against the transgender community here.

Because think about it.

We know they're a Trumper and they don't give a fuck.

And due to people like Android Sophia we knew there was indeed intended to be a paragraph to support transgender members in the actual OT supposedly.

But that's something Black Chamber themselves refused to say and just beat around the bush on.

Why?

Knowing they're a Trumper, it makes perfect sense.

The whole goal along all along was to foster hostilities against the transgender community here.

And just looking at the reactions in the Night City Wire OT, with how many people he had on his side on singing and his praises and all that, he got pretty damn close to doing just that.

Not just close.

Since transgender members have actually left the site due to all this, you could even say he was successful in that goal.

And that's disgusting and unacceptable.

Because the staff had multiple points they could have put a stop to all of this, even before his history came out.

He made a gameplan, to play the longgame, and the sad thing is, despite being permed, he still won, by creating those schisms and getting multiple transgender members of the community to leave, and that's purely on the staff for not nipping it in the bud and actually taking the time to listen to the transgender community, ban history or no ban history, tweets or no tweets, or whatever.

They could have just listened to the concerns of the transgender community, instead of putting the interests of some nobody OT-starter and making backroom deals with them instead and putting all of that above the transgender community.

They could have just checked their own fucking backlogs.

They could have done so many things, but they failed to do each and every one of them.

There were so many things that could have been done.

So many. But they failed at every point instead.

There was a point I trusted the staff. The staff themselves can vouch for this if they have access to my post report history because for a while, I made a point of trying to remember to thank them for their hard work whenever I reported a post. I didn't always remember to do that. But I tried my best.

But those days are gone.

Because this is a fuckup beyond fuckups.

All trust I have for the staff of this site is completely gone.

Just zip. Zero. Zilch.

Because even before their actual history came out, there were still so many points, so many opportunities to avoid every bit of this.

But none of them were taken and Black Chamber was given the benefit of the doubt over the transgender community, all their suspicions and misgivings, everything.

And that's something I can not easily forget or forgive.

THAT SAID, I am thankful and very appreciative for being unbanned early. I truly do appreciate that.

But in the name of full transparency, I feel like I have to share the ban appeal tickets I made while I was banned, which I never got a single response to on any single one of them, and which I do feel, especially collectively, do a very good job of summing up why this was all handled so terribly, even without knowing about any of Black Chamber's ban history or tweets or anything and I just wouldn't feel right if this wasn't shared for all to see, as yeah, it really demonstrates how I feel and why this was so badly handled, revealing ban history or tweets or no (dashes indicate the end of one post I made in my ban appeal and the start of another new post in the appeal ticket):

And I do realize there is indeed some hostility in what I'm about to quote. But I hope that can be forgiven because this was originally written in the context of a ban appeal thread and is just me quoting it verbatim, with nothing hidden because I don't want to hide that and the whole point is honesty and transparency here, so I hope that can be understood in that context and not lead to anything or be taken outside of the context of a then-banned member naturally being frustrated at their situation and being powerless to change what was happening and going on outside in the forum while they were banned, desperately wanting to say so, SO very much and just not being able and being tremendously frustrated by what I was seeing and reading and not being able to do anything about that, and so yeah, I hope it can be understood in that context.

With that said, here's everything I said in my ban appeal thread for my situation:

"
Hello. ShironRedshift. I'd like to appeal my ban. Well, no. I'm not sure you can call this a ban appeal exactly. Because I know what I did was wrong and crossed the line. I fully admitted that when I made the posts I did.

However, I nonetheless want the staff to hear my side and how it feels like your leaving minority members like me with no options. That no matter which option we choose, civility, hostility, or anywhere between, that they're ALL bad and ALL lead to negative consequences in their own way.

But like I said in later posts in the same thread, it's a case of learned helplessness.

That civility has gotten nowhere. That the whole point of keeping the threads on Cyberpunk open, according to the mods, was to among other things help to educate others on transgender issues.

But not only has that not happened, but the whole disagreement that lead into the confrontation that lead to be getting banned in the first place was, nevermind the subject of education in general, it didn't even touch on that, but it all started with a dispute with rather a single paragraph, a single paragraph was too much or not.

Which, as it turns out, the plan was to include that paragraph...?

But the person who will be the OP of the thread denied that for reasons unknown and strung them along for no discernible reason in that case and just increased hostilities all around.

Many tried to be more civil than me in the initial (locked) thread that ultimately lead to nothing. Just more dismissive responses, as has been the case since this whole saga with this game began.

Which then lead to me seeing that, seeing so many wonderful people trying their best to be so incredibly, incredibly patient, and it not working and them only being dismissed. That even if the mods indeed banned many of the offenders, many more just came to replace them in return. Certainly no learning was happening.

Which in turn lead to my hostile response. Which I knew wouldn't fix anything either. Which I knew would lead to be being banned as I said, so I can't truly complain.

But at the same time, what was I to do?

Civility is a complete failure that lead to nothing.

And hostility obviously is also nonetheless both wrong and lead to people such as myself being banned.

And then of course there's the option of just doing nothing.

But that just leads to a feeling of learned helplessness, uselessness, and depression, things I certainly don't need more of as I already struggle with social anxiety and depression and mental illness.

Just all options are bad in their own way.

Be civil? Nothing changes, and we keep going in circles.

Get hostile, and vent some of my true feelings? I get banned.

Give into helplessness? My anxiety and depression goes into overdrive?

What are people like me SUPPOSED TO DO?

Like, I'm honestly asking here.

I know what I said and did was wrong and crossed the line.

But civility was not working (and clearly continues to work, as the person I believe I was believe the person I responded to got a lesser ban for me and will potentially still share a role in creating the Cyberpunk OT despite their own ban, so what exactly does that say about where civility gets you in matters of transphobia and the like? That as long as your civil about and do it in a polite way you'll be comparatively rewarded? Surely that can't be the intended message, but it's the message that's sent regardless of whether it's intended or not).

And obviously hostility just leads to stuff like my own ban.

And doing nothing and just sitting passively while this goes on does nothing for my anxiety and depression?

So what is the answer?

Because I've got nothing.

Like I said, I can't honestly say this is an appeal for my ban, because I knew what would happen when I made that post and knew the risks.

But I don't know what in the world I'm supposed to do, because every possible option is bad, so that being the case, being surrounded by a variety of bad options, I just picked the bad option that would at least let me vent my feelings.

That's not a defense. I know it's not.

But this is a subject that needs to be handled better in general, is what I am saying I suppose.

How, I'm not sure.

But certainly it needs to be handled better than a way that only gives minority members such as myself 3 options (1. Be civil to our abusers while they're abusing us and maybe they're banned, maybe they're not, either way only to be replaced by others who don't care and go back to square one 2.) Vent our true feelings and get banned for it or 3.) Just be quiet and silent and give into learned helplessness and depression).

None of those options are good. Not a single one of them.

But as far as I can see it, those are the only three options minority members have.

Like, I'm not good at this type of thing (likely in part because of my social anxiety and autism, and like, I've mentioned this before I believe in certain post reports and stuff, that I myself used to be a moderator of a global large forum when I was a teenager, NarutoFan forums, around like, god, like 2007 or 2008, when Naruto was pretty much at the peak of its popularity, and I pretty much gave that power away and switched into being in the "Advisor" role for inactive staff precisely because among other things I realized I was no good at it and definitely didn't have the answers, so I'm certainly not one to give advice.

And bans in particular even then were one of the trickiest subjects that gave me the most anxiety even back then, because judging what crossed the line and what didn't and if it did cross the line exactly how much time it deserves and how stuff like prior bans should factor in or signs of changed behavior and so many other things, even with an entire mods-only board to discuss exactly that type of thing, there's just so many factors to consider that among the things that gave me the most anxiety about being a global moderator, bans were definitely at the top of the list and I was terrified of screwing them up.

But anyway, the point being, that having been there, I realize precisely how difficult being a moderator and making these decisions are, how it's just so very much incredibly gray so many times and there are no easy answers and it's just a bunch of unpaid people trying their best to make due with something incredibly stressful and not having any type of instruction manual and just trying to do their best. I feel that so much, having been in that position once upon a time on a site that, god, I can't remember how many active users it had at that time, but it had to at least rival this if not exceed it.

But at the same time, the status quo certainly cannot stand.

Because it only leaves minority members such as transgender individuals with three options, which all suck:

1.) Be civil to their oppressors and just wait for the mods to ban them, which the staff does a good job of doing, but doesn't do anything to make up for the hurt caused by them in the meantime and also doesn't take away from how for how each one that's banned, two more seem to crawl out of nowhere, just making the whole approach incredibly frustrating, when it's certainly not being met in return with civility and doesn't seem to lead to many of the promised opportunities for learning and growth.

2.) Let some of our true feelings flow and basically, in, uh, less than polite language, tell them to get lost, which just leads to we ourselves getting banned.

3.) Doing nothing. Which is just the thing. Nothing. And by it's very nature, changes nothing. Leading to stuff like feelings of learned helplessness, feelings of not belonging or not being cared about, feelings of anxiety or depression, and so forth.

None of these are good options, but they seem to be the only three on the table.

And that's what I'm asking to change.

I don't know how. Like I said, I've been in the position of being a global moderator in the past. I don't envy it. That's part of why I left, so I know it's kind of hypocritical for someone like me to ask for answers I couldn't find and just ran away from.

But nonetheless, I suppose this isn't so much an appeal for my ban, but for the sake of the transgender community, among so many communities on the site, such as AsianEra and what they're dealing with in the Monster Hunter threads and such (like even with Capcom itself admitting fault while trying to pass the blame and the movie itself potentially being banned in China, still trying to deny the racism. And of course they get banned, which is great, but that doesn't change how much hurt those posts cause in the first place, especially since it's the same problem of basically playing whack-a-mole), that something needs to change.

I don't know what those answers are.

And I really have no right to ask the staff to figure out stuff that I couldn't and ran away from myself when I was a mod (for much lesser problems in my case, because it wasn't even anything like transphobia or stuff like that I was fearful over how long to ban people over, but just your run of the mill flamewars over people getting to angry and hostile over who the best character in the series is and stuff like that and attacking each other over having the "wrong" opinion, just stuff like that was too much with my social anxiety).

Nonetheless, while I don't have the answers, I know this can't be sustained. So I'm using the opportunity hear to ask the mods to do just that. Because while I don't have the answers, the status quo can't go on, that's for sure.

Thank you for your time, and have a wonderful day.

REAL NAME CENSORED

AKA ShironRedshift (and in the NarutoFan days aka Shiron and MeijinNoKori and IceMasterHitsugayaKun and Payaso Coronado along with a bunch of other names I've forgotten)

------------------------------------------

And I'd like to append this. Just look at what in the world happened when the Night City Wire thread was unlocked:

Post after post thanking the person who made a mockery of transgender member's concerns, apparently planning the whole time to have the paragraph they wanted in the OP while at the same time not just saying that and letting hostilities rise for no reason.

That person is getting post after post of thanks with no mention of transgender member concerns whatsoever:

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 2077 Night City WIRE: Episode 5 |OT| Time moves in one direction, memory in another [Media Impressions, Console Footage & Discussion] OT
If some people are lacking the context, the original unfiltered back-and-forth is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 👇 Speaking of the OT. Will there be a blurb in it welcoming the Trans community and while there maybe some questionable content regarding them, that they are wanted in...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

Cyberpunk 207

[benjipwns]

Papa Santanas, who is also permed and thus I don't have the pleasure of fucking bodying them personally for engaging in an overstepping of bounds

three thousand words later...

Papa did that shit in the meeting too, and again I’m mad they’re permed because I can’t say this to their face. I’m paraphrasing, but this is what she said:

“Imagine being black or Asian and coming to the conclusion that staff just outright hate you for being a minority.”

This right here? Look at it. This is pure, unadulterated crackery. The whitest whitery that ever did white. This is Super Saiyan Blue Karen.

[benjipwns]

if staff are not going to be respected for the Herculean effort of trying to create the kind of large-scale online space that, as far as I know, does not and never has existed

[Boredfrom]

I think that, in general, people have appreciated my presence in these matters before and that I have somewhat of a knack for community engagement

Y'all are going to be mad, but that's the secret at this point. ... most of it is going to be about the toll this has taken on me. No, I don't give a shit if you think this is inappropriately rerouting the conversation; I'm burnt out and subsequently apathetic. I've been holding on to a lot of this for over a year, and I'm going to get it off my chest now ... This thread will also be locked so you can't skip over it

I'm still exhausted from the Asian Era meeting

I also want to make it clear that ... I also want to further preface this by saying that

from my perspective, I'm getting pulled into some irrelevant shit for a discussion that I never actually volunteered for ... when the meeting was already underway that I finally told them to give me an invite to see if I could help. ... again I willingly volunteered

I imagine all this in Trump’s voice.

[benjipwns]

Hogwarts is coming up and it's our chance to head this situation off at the pass. Just as well, JK Rowling has been a subject of contention. Staff have been talking about whether or not to mitigate, if not outright ban Harry Potter talk for months now, which was actually a pleasant surprise to some of the Discord meeting participants. I want staff to get together as soon as possible and make a definitive ruling on how we are to deal with the franchise’s presence on this forum, and announce it to you all.

[Tasty]

if staff are not going to be respected for the Herculean effort of trying to create the kind of large-scale online space that, as far as I know, does not and never has existed

Technically, that's true.

[DJ Bedroom]

Stinkles literally got banned for racism, multiple times.
I feel like they have no choice but to ban Halo discussion, and by extension xbox

[benjipwns]

[BikeJesus]

This right here? Look at it. This is pure, unadulterated crackery. The whitest whitery that ever did white. This is Super Saiyan Blue Karen. It is some of the most uncolored bullshit I could have encountered in a meeting that had absolutely nothing to do with people of color in the first place!

Imagine thinking having this person as a mod is a good idea.

[CHOW CHOW]

You guys are ruining the thread quoting these long posts. It hasn’t been funny in years and makes mobile browsing a chore.

[Tasty]

You guys are ruining the thread quoting these long posts. It hasn’t been funny in years and makes mobile browsing a chore.

I expect pain when I'm ITT tbh. I try not to make a habit of it, but I'm really fuckin' bored rn.

[benjipwns]

You guys are ruining the thread quoting these long posts. It hasn’t been funny in years and makes mobile browsing a chore.

Now you know what it's like to be a non-binary moderator of color on ResetERA.com.

[Tasty]

NeoGAF is Zion.

ResetEra is The Matrix.

So, which pill are you going to take?

so what does that make The Bore?
 

(Image removed from quote.)

I've been drinking and I need to correc the record. Uncle SHAMELSSLY STOLE my GIF without crditing me and garnered a BIONIC like under false pretenses,

I demand restitution!

I spent 20 mins making those two Matrix Has You GIFs by hand myself goddamnit!!!

[Tektonic]

You guys are ruining the thread quoting these long posts. It hasn’t been funny in years and makes mobile browsing a chore.

Now you know what it's like to be a non-binary moderator of color on ResetERA.com.

complaining about browsing on a mobile, where are those mobiles made? i see your sinophobia slick

[jorma]

Story: (after Tourney of Power)

Bulma creates dimension machine that allows Goku and friends(Including Whis and Beerus) to enter into the DC universe.

Goku enters DC's version of Earth and meets Superman and the Justice League.

They end up being friends and having a friendly duel...ends up in a tie(no UI Goku).

Whis sees the potential in Superman and offers to train him...

Superman gets cocky and challenge Whis and loses to him easily.

Superman decides to take Whis offer and joins Goku and Vegeta to do hard training for one year only.

During this time, Superman learns to:

-Takes three first months to learn about how to sense and use Ki.
-Takes three more months to learn and master God Ki (superman hair turns blue).
-Takes six months to learn Ultra Instinct and Mastered Ultra Instinct (hair turns white when using MUI).

...After 1 year and turning down Whis offer to become a God of Destruction, Bulma returns him to DC universe.

Superman is back in DC and with his amped powers, he can sense all of the current villain's Ki within the DC universe and decides to defeat them via Gauntlet solo:

-Superman has all of the abilities of Mastered Ultra Instinct + his own natural strength on top of it.
-Magic doesn't work on Superman since now he can use Ki and uses it to protect himself.
-Ki Enhances ALL of Superman's natural abilities.
-Kryptonite weakness doesn't work well on him with his new abilities.

1. Lex with all tech
2. Deathstroke
3. General Zod
4. Best version of Doomsday
5. Brainiac
6. Best Version of Darkseid
7. Lobo
8. Trigon
9. Anti-Monitor
10. Nekron

Bonus Round: The Presence (not a villain)

Your thoughts....

(Image removed from quote.)

this dude is 38 years old btw 

[daycru]

What if Superman teamed up with Elizabeth Warren to cream the CHUDS like Lex Luthor and Bernie Sanders

[Raist]

"Your agenda against CDPR."

Uh huh.

Literally post under yours is a PS5 user saying the game crashes every two hours. So, please, tell me more about my "agenda."

Also, please reply to this with your thoughts on their transphobia.

 

[joeboy101]

There’s a black ERA community here? Like a thread? I didn’t know that, and I’ve been here since the Old Place. I assume it’s in Hangouts?

Here you go:

The Black Culture Community [OT 05] Got the Rona? Rub some tussin on it. You'll be aight.
OT#5.This is the BLACK CULTURE COMMUNITY THREAD. All are welcome here as long as you're respectful to other members. Talk about whatever you like, but try to be polite if you can. And remember that first and foremost this is the Black community thread. Don't drag forum drama into the BCC. OT...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

It's an incredibly welcoming community that I am thankful to be a part of.

This is pure, unadulterated crackery. The whitest whitery that ever did white. This is Super Saiyan Blue Karen. It is some of the most uncolored bullshit I could have encountered in a meeting that had absolutely nothing to do with people of color in the first place!

I’m sure you’ve been seeing perms for the equation of anything that goes on on ERA to the reality of being black in America. Hello. That was my doing, and I don’t regret it. I don’t care what mistakes we have made, and I don’t even care what bigoted bullshit game companies have put out at this point. You are not George Floyd. You are not Breonna Taylor. You are not any of the myriad of black victims (many of which are trans) who have been legitimately lost to the spectre of white supremacy.

I made a crack about Hexe not having the spine to say some shit like that to me on the day of my birthday, reiterated my stance, thanked TransEra for allowing me to talk with them, and requested politely not be pinged again.

Incredibly welcoming.

 

[joeboy101]

Also, she edited that post. Not even going to try and ascertain what changed aside from

Pound sand.

changing to

Fuck off, you herbs.

I mean, you thought THAT needed changing? Honestly, the first went better thematically with that screed.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/constructive-community-discussion.270630/post-54328819

a lot of the issues regarding the forum culture... are inexplicably(sic) tied into toxicity and long-held grudges, and some individuals will use genuine efforts to better the site as opportunities to harass [people], a lot of them not even being part of the aggrieved groups in question.

deliberately bad-faith readings of... posts, and petty snipes

disingenuously asked...if I had anything to say to everything that I had been privy to, all of the venting and rage and sarcasm, as if there is some magical response anyone can craft in the face of tens of posts of stream-of-consciousness to make it all better.

the resulting toxicity coming from all corners of this blasted website whenever shit goes down, a lot of which is from people's personal lives or involves fights I was never privy to

It's about people being angry, and people not liking each other, and people unhappy with the community demographics and how those demographics inform the atmosphere, and about how personally betrayed people feel when their friends get banned, which staff can’t actually do anything about. And if it's all really about that, then individuals need to ask themselves if Era, even at its best, can give them the online community they desire. Because ... Era cannot be a safe space

don't fucking act like it's [their] fault. Don't insult [them]. Don't get your lick in hours later and fall back on how you feel or any perceived slights you have that have nothing to do with [them], as if merely being upset allows you the moral high ground to treat anyone any kind of way.

talks were unproductive and ultimately nasty because of those few rabblerousers.

If you want this to be a forum that takes into account ACTUAL intersectionality, that is a safe space for ALL... , not just the groups you and your friends happen to belong to, do your due diligence

these bad faith actors and trolls who always hijack these conversations... The sheer disingenuousness that runs concurrent through these conversations, and the inability [to]... reroute things back to a course of productivity and understanding is picked apart with the most bad-faith readings imaginable and dismissed as tone-policing and ignoring the issues

To say nothing of the fact that this behavior, as noted, runs rampant in the various community Discords too before it’s pushed back onto the forums writ large. A lot of feelings of anger, resentment, and dissatisfaction are had in places...  it gets out of hand and makes it even harder for us to discern what is and isn’t good faith engagement when it gets self-perpetuating and unchallenged, and thus becomes part of the Discords’ culture

If Nepenthe wasn't so they might have about why era is such a fucking toxic cesspit

It cannot be said that I was incompetent.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Not even Jupiter, [ruler of the Gods,] cannot help but

Here is some uplifting music to get you through these hard times

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Bernie would admonish superman.

[Borealis]

Mods pls deal with these Borean fucks constantly/pyramid quoting the ramblings of a batshit-crazy Pokemon fanthem.

I'm adamant of them hates Taco Bell too. 

[Snoopycat_]

Nep writing that full length novel,  "Fuck you cheeseburgers, I'm the real victim here"

[joeboy101]

If it weren't for the length, you'd coulda convinced me that it was a Shower Tyler post. Same attitude, just more word diarrhea.

[Snoopycat_]

If it was Tyler he would've posted a bunch of MLK quotes and attributed them to himself

[Don Rumata]

This story's becoming like a Netflix show, a couple of episodes too long.
They had their climax, and now they're just dragging with filler material. 

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

The CDPR Eating Crackers thread are priapic at the news Sony pulled Cyberpunk from PSN, when they literally didn't do shit and its the "Gamers" they so condescendingly despise are responsible

[headwalk]

cyberpunk's bugs are standard eurojank/bethesda fare. it's real crime was telling console povvos that they weren't good enough.

[BIONIC]

NeoGAF is Zion.

ResetEra is The Matrix.

So, which pill are you going to take?

so what does that make The Bore?
 

(Image removed from quote.)

I've been drinking and I need to correc the record. Uncle SHAMELSSLY STOLE my GIF without crditing me and garnered a BIONIC like under false pretenses,

I demand restitution!

I spent 20 mins making those two Matrix Has You GIFs by hand myself goddamnit!!!

I liked this one and the original post. Anything for u bb 

[joeboy101]

Yeah, don’t think I forgot that purple Punisher logo

 

[Uncle]

[joeboy101]

Let the drama flow...

Remember kids, pace yourselves.

So in Nepenthe's post, she is giving a timeline of events from her perspective.

This is my timeline (in CEST timezone, might be different days for different people). Note that this represents only MY perception of events, I am not a representative for TransEra or trans people in general. The only reason I'm doing this is because we keep getting portrayed as mean bullies or something, like we're a toxic element on this site, the whole trans community like it's a monolith, by people in this very thread, and staff is just standing by letting it happen. And since events from the discord are being brought up by staff again, I feel like I have to respond to that, because if I don't we'll keep being portrayed as troublemakers and bullies. The only reason I talk about offsite interactions is because staff has brought up these interactions first. We were going to keep everyone's privacy about their offsite activity away from this, but if we are doing that while staff doesn't, we can't defend ourselves. And to be clear, that's what this is, a defense.

EDIT: And also, to clarify, I would never equate what's going on here to police brutality against black people. From the conversations in our discord, I think everyone sides with Nepenthe on this. The punisher person was not trans and neither was the MLK quoting person. Several of us reported the MLK person and moved on (as we're supposed to not engage with trolls) since they had only 7 posts and were assumed to be troll account. Aside from that, I completely agree that equations between this situation and police brutality and racism should not be made. We're on your side here, intersectional solidarity all the way.

For full context, I will have to line out a few events leading up to this. I think with this all in mind the story of "TransEra are toxic and bullied Sophia into quitting" will hopefully be deflated. I'm not writing this from memory.

Pre-timeline: Ketkat ban, AsianEra discussion thread and "Takeaways" thread, resulting AsianEra exodus/bans, Shamima Begum thread and MuslimEra exodus/bans, and probably a whole lot more that are not on my radar right now. Not going into detail on any of those.

1st of November, Sophia joins the TransEra discord. She is there as a trans person, not as a mod.

30th of November, Aby is banned for this post: https://www.resetera.com/threads/no...and-advance-lgbtq-rights.335045/post-52769529
On discord, people talk about this ban in the meta channel, without addressing Sophia at all. Sophia responds anyway with an extremely passive aggressive post starting with the word "sigh" and ending with the sentence "I don't mean to be blunt, but y'all do realize you have one of your own as an admin, right?", so she clearly sees her position in the staff team as an all around defense of said staff team against any of the issues we've been facing. Someone answers "yes, and people know they have a right to express their opinions [...] Aby is just one more [ban of trans people getting upset about bad faith posters]". Sophia answers with the word "sigh" and leaves the discord immediately. So we're starting off here with a complete dismissal of all our issues surrounding Era, because I guess having trans staff makes you immune against any criticism? Personal comment now in hindsight: a discord server exclusively having trans people on it apparently doesn't get that same immunity (and shouldn't, but staff shouldn't either).

4th of December, a TransEra member sends in a ban appeal after four months and it gets denied with a message basically saying (paraphrased) "we don't believe your apology because you keep attacking the staff and spreading misinformation", which is a bit strange because the only place she could have been "attacking the staff and spreading misinformation" would have been outside of Era. Again, she had been banned for 4(!) months at this point. This leads to some suspicions, some joking some half serious, that there must be some moles in her discords. The ban appeal reads sincere and could have been answered with something neutral like "we don't re-examine bans this soon" or something, instead of something dripping with contempt and resentment.

Just in general, for weeks leading up to the 6th (?) of December, staff does not believe trans people and others who point out that Black Chamber, the creator of the Cyberpunk OTs (who has been banned for bigotry before) is a bad faith poster ("Please just say that the transphobia around this game won't be ignored" - "Everybody is welcome 💯") and believes him instead. During this period a whole lot of trans people and cis allies are banned for voicing their frustrations at this situation. There's a lot more stuff going on like him lying about Kyuji threatening to derail his thread and shit like that (where again, staff sided with him).

6th of December, Sophia writes this post: https://www.resetera.com/threads/cd...-making-excuses-for-them.307474/post-53318362
Black Chamber is supposed to take a voluntary 1 month ban to appease the people speaking up about him. Some TransEra members and allies express their worry that the expected result of this will be that he will be seen as some kind of martyr for the reasonable, polite centrists (a lot of whom we have identified and reported as bad faith posters), a clumsy but essentially innocent lamb who had to be sacrificed to appease the unreasonable SJWs. "They're letting him martyr himself". Which people in the thread use as an opportunity to dogwhistle about what a standup guy he is and how it sucks that he's being "harassed".

7th (?) of December, Black Chamber turns out to be a nazi. The only way this could be proven was by someone finding his twitter account, so this is still not because staff believes minorities when they hear a dogwhistle for the 100th time, but just because they could not keep denying it. B-Dubs writes this post: https://www.resetera.com/threads/cd...-making-excuses-for-them.307474/post-53342845
He specifically claims that the previous accusations where only that he was a shill for CDPR, not a bad faith poster in general (again, staff not listening to trans voices). And there is no apology to all the people who were banned before, just a promise that the bans in the OT will be reviewed. A whole lot of trans people and cis allies are pointing out, in this thread and others, that this is incident is emblematic - this is what they experience all the time on Era, Era staff prioritizing civility over minority voices, and this time, to the point of literally VOUCHING for a bigot despite his ban history. These people are pointing out that this has happened with AsianEra and MuslimEra before. A lot of them, again, are banned for hostility.

Later on the 7th of December, there is an apology from staff to trans Era members. B-Dubs writes:
"I know it must be incredibly frustrating for the members who raised concerns about Black Chamber that not only were they not heeded, he turned out to be even worse than anyone knew - but many of you clearly suspected, and we should've listened. This is especially true in regards to the trans members of the community, who openly voiced their concerns and were talked down to, instead of being heard. We know the community relies on us to catch this kind of thing, and in this case we fucked up, plain and simple. Again, I apologize for that."
A lot of trans people have given in to cynicism at this point and while they appreciate the apology, what they would like to see are systematic changes, or at least the admittance that this is a systematic problem, and that they have messed up before. For example, everything around the AsianEra takeaway thread. And the fact that this very thread is mostly unknown to the community at large by hiding it in the announcements section. And people who were banned in the confrontation with and about Black Chamber never got an apology.

- Also on the 7th of December, Sophia contacts the TransEra discord and wants to talk. A lot of users are sceptical about this, because of the timeline I've laid out here including the "sigh" moment. But we are fine with having a conversation despite that. She lets us know that she has handed in her resignation for after these talks and that this mending of relations is important to her. The fact that she had already handed in her resignation could probably easily be verified by the staff members she sent it to. Any claims that Sophia was bullied into retirement are 100% incorrect. Either misinformed or a straight up lie. But who knows? Maybe Sophia told us she had handed in her resignation but then changed her mind and only handed it in after the talks? I wouldn't blame her for that. Regardless, it's being painted here as if there is a direct causal relation from the talks to Sophia quitting and that is just provably untrue.

I don't know what Sophia's plans for these talks were. She basically came in and said "sorry for the Black Chamber situation, what can I do to make it right?", and in my understanding, what TransEra wanted was for Sophia to understand the history of our issues surrounding moderation (civility over minority voices) and the forum biosphere that nourishes (bad faith posters and dogwhistling leading to bans for the people who call them out). This was important to many of us because of the disregard she had shown for our concerns around moderation during the "sigh" moment. We wanted her to understand that this was not an isolated incident. What happens in the beginning of these talks can in my view be generalized as: discord member brings up an issue (i.e. ban for hostility against someone dogwhistling) -> Sophia looks into it, says she agrees, but does not have the power to do anything about it. This is all couched in customer service de-escalation language which is grating to me personally because I had to use it in my former line of work, and I feel like the use of this language is manipulative. To be clear, I'm not accusing her of manipulation, it's just my personal association. Because we hear "I don't actually have that power", we ask for B-Dubs to join the talks. She says she messaged him but he's offline right now and she'll get back to us.

But again, Black Chamber wasn't the only issue, the situation was emblematic for how trans people are generally treated on Era. If we didn't care deeply about these issues, we wouldn't bother having these talks, right? And we're not a unified voice, we're a bunch of people who each have their own history. So for example, Ketkat's ban is brought up by several people, but that was not a sticking point for everyone, that was just another example for "trans person reacts to bad faith poster and gets banned for hostility". Ketkat herself, from the very beginning, expressed that she actually had no interest in being unbanned, because the forum had become such a hostile place towards her. And obviously it was never going to happen because of the contempt some staff members apparently are still carrying around. This is what was told to us by all three mods in these discussions: They didn't agree with the decision on the Ketkat ban, but there was nothing they could do because of "past grievances".

At some point the OT comes up because someone has to write it, right? (A lot of trans Era members would prefer a full on ban.) So a member of the discord offers to write it. It's pointed out that a staff member should post it so that the discord member won't be perceived as a token trans person, so that the thread won't be perceived as "all of TransEra signed off on this". In the end, Sophia as a staff member posts the OT, and the worry comes true. Example without linking the poster:
"Shout out to transEra for all the work they have put in to getting this together, voicing their thoughts, advocating for an inclusive forum and, through all the shit they have been given, still wanting people to have a space to discuss this game and issues."
Some TransEra members who were opposed to having an OT in the first place feel like this is an erasure of their opinion. Full disclosure, I'm one of them.

Alice joins discussions, and kind of misreads the room, trying to lighten up the mood, joking around etc., which is not perceived well, as it feels to some members like she is not taking the talks seriously. Again, not saying that she didn't, this is about perceptions.

Even with Alice in the talks, it overall doesn't change from "we hear you, we'll look into it, we agree it's an issue, we can't really change it but we'll do anything in our power to look into this for you". We were left completely in the dark if anything was actually happening, if other staff were contacted about anything, but we were going off the assumption that staff knew that these talks were happening, mostly because Sophia mentioned writing and sending emails to staff several times. Again, because we are hearing "we don't have that kind of power", we are asking for B-Dubs to join. Again, "that's a good idea, we'll see what we can do about getting him in here".

This goes on for 5 days.

On the 12th of December, one of us realizes that a problematic situation we had been reporting to staff over and over again, and that had been brought up in our talks, was resolved. The two mods in our discord didn't mention anything about it, so we asked, hey, that's cool, so these talks are going somewhere? We can have an impact with this? But we were told by one of the two , I quote, "I want to stress that this isn't because of anything said in here." and some more stuff that I can't mention because it would give away what the situation was about. In any case, we were treated as if we would take this "victory" and parade it around or something, but instead we were told to not bring it up in the discussion ever again, which was perceived as very hostile.

So people are upset. They're not attacking the mods, but they are responding to the tone with questions. "So you're saying you can't really change anything, and the one thing that changed for the better, we definitely didn't have an impact on? So why are we even bothering then?", that kind of thing.

At this point, Nepenthe joins the talks. She is apparently completely out of the loop and thought this all was just about Black Chamber? She says she was PM'ed by a random user (who is neither trans nor in the discord) about the Ketkat ban, and seems agitated over this and, as I understand it, in her eyes this is proof that the talks were leaked? This all is cause for confusion.

Sophia leaves the discord without further communication and we are told by Alice that this is for health reasons, and that she was thanking us for our time and giving her the space to work this out, nothing about how we were supposedly bullying her? Which makes it seem very disingenous to portray it as such. We never meant to make her feel bad and there was never any pushback from either of them.

After getting over the confusion (but seemingly Nepenthe still thinks we leaked that we were talking about Ketkat?), we go through the same cycle again. Member brings something up, Nepenthe looks into it, she says she'll see what she can do, turns out it's not in her power. But at least she's direct to us about Ketkat, saying there is no way that Ketkat will ever be on Era again. (Again, Ketkat never wanted to come back, but it would have been a symbolic gesture of good will because if the TransEra discord would be in agreement about one single thing, it's that Ketkat has been done dirty.) Again, because we are being told "I don't have that kind of power", we ask that B-Dubs join in the discussion. Again, "we'll see what we can do".

So at this point I say something snippish about hearing the same PR talk again, which was wrong and hotheaded of me. The reason that happened hours after the fact is that I was asleep, again, CEST timezone. I woke up to the 3rd mod captain out of 5 telling us they don't actually have any power, and I, like many others on the server, had had enough of this seemingly neverending cycle.

Nepenthe reacts to this by telling us to do what we need to do for the sake of our mental health regarding Era (which I personally read as "if you have issues with the way Era is, you might have a mental health issue") and that she's not going to "fucking beg anyone to stay", and that she won't stay in the discord to serve as a target for anyone's anger and frustration, thanks us for the invite and ends it with "Don't ping or quote me again".

So, some of us read this as targeted at me specifically (the don't ping or quote me again part), but others including the mods of the server read it as targeted against the whole server, "you" as in "all of you" and not as in "you, Hexe". This is probably informed by the frustration we have been going through for days at this point. Remember, the talks started on the 7th CEST, for me it is now the morning of the 14th. So, the server mods read Nepenthe's message as "these talks are over, just leave Era if you don't like it" so they remove the two remaining Era staff members (they only had access to the discussion channel) because the roles channel hasn't been functioning properly and we have new users coming in. (That's what I was told, I don't know how discord works.)

So now in hindsight, reading the posts by Poodlestrike, Sophia, Alice and now Nepenthe I think there are some things that the staff members took as attacks but were not meant as such:
- Sophia read our criticisms of how Era is moderated as us bullying and erasing her identity, which was never intended (nor did any one of us - two dozen or so who were active in the talks - read it this way), and if we had been told about it we would have apologized?
- Nepenthe read a user PM'ing her about Ketkat as proof that we were leaking content of the talks while in reality it was just a random cis user unrelated to TransEra who had no idea about the talks
- Alice read the removal of the two remaining staff members from the discord as an insult to the both of them, which was based on a misunderstanding of Nepenthe's last post

So, again, I want to emphasize what I wrote as a response to Nepenthe's last message in the discord (paraphrased a few words for context):

I hope everyone here realizes that we've spent a week in there with 3 out of 5 mod captains who have kept on saying the same stuff over and over again, that they agree with us but don't have any actual power. I think frustration and disillusionment are a very normal and healthy reaction to this. Catching some of that frustration is not really on a single staff member who was in there. We could have been told from the beginning that era staff including trans staff don't care about us (the people in the TransEra discord, again, 70+ people) enough to make actual changes or gestures beyond promises which consistently have been empty. In fact that was what most of us have been convinced of, some for a year or so, some longer. There are more trans people on our and the NB discord who have left era or have been permabanned for standing up for themselves ("history of hostility" is a meme there) than there are active posters. We have already been run off. Sophia is the one who made us think that staff might have an interest in mending relations, but apparently we've just been strung along for a week. All the while being completely left in the dark.

Not @ing Nepenthe because she told me not to.

These bricks of text are not me asking to be banned!  They made that thread members only, so I got no choice.

 

[SmokyDave]

Heh, I was going to post that but then deleted it because of all the huge posts further up. Amazing how many words are being typed, all of which add up to sweet fuck all.

At least they're having fun.

[jorma]

was that hexes 23:rd post on ree?
and already higher in rank than incelsior, nice job gurl! 

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

Its like the Pepys Diary of Forum Drama Nobody Gives An Actual Fuck About

[benjipwns]

These bricks of text are not me asking to be banned!  They made that thread members only, so I got no choice.

Thank you for your sacrifice, not everyone has signed up for a ResetERA.com account.

[benjipwns]

7th (?) of December, Black Chamber turns out to be a nazi. The only way this could be proven was by someone finding his twitter account

[benjipwns]

This is all couched in customer service de-escalation language which is grating to me personally because I had to use it in my former line of work, and I feel like the use of this language is manipulative. To be clear, I'm not accusing her of manipulation, it's just my personal association.

Then why'd you bring it up?

[BIONIC]

My friend Nep, I was there when you were brought on. And from day 1, you've been a huge, incalculable force of compassion and understanding.

I know how hard it was for you to open yourself and write what you did. And I adore you for it.

Also, lol former mod cuck.

[benjipwns]

was that hexes 23:rd post on ree?
and already higher in rank than incelsior, nice job gurl! 

between this and Banshee mcspook you almost would think some kind of favoritism or something is going on, either that or TransEra lets absolute nobodies sign up and immediately rise to a position of clout in their community

[BIONIC]

Honestly I really appreciate you taking the time to air out your frustrations with recent events you are good people and I myself know how stressful and upsetting the talks were. So thankyou for everything and trying to help get stuff done it honestly means alot to me. I just hope we can keep going and work towards a better future for era as a whole.

You're good people, Banshee. I appreciate you too. ❤

I try I know I'm kind of dumb and weird but I try.

Don't call yourself dumb banshee. Your not dumb.

You're not dumb <3. We've never spoken and I've not always replied in your threads but I appreciate how you call out certain things on the site and try to make it better.

He I just learned what spooning was today. I can definitely account for mind goblins. In all seriousness though I do care about the forum a great deal so trying to make all those threads to help meant a great deal to me.

[benjipwns]

Nepenthe reacts to this by telling us to do what we need to do for the sake of our mental health regarding Era (which I personally read as "if you have issues with the way Era is, you might have a mental health issue")

this Hexe person might have a mental health issue

[jorma]

Nepenthe reacts to this by telling us to do what we need to do for the sake of our mental health regarding Era (which I personally read as "if you have issues with the way Era is, you might have a mental health issue")

this Hexe person might have a mental health issue

it's a shame ket kat is banned, she could probably have helped since she saved so many lives in the mental health thread

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

I really object to the way I am mischaracterised as a toxic, spiteful, hostile and mean spirited bully by everyone I enter a discussion with who's not a peon in my discord

[joeboy101]

Feeling like Hexe might be KetKat’s alt.

[Pissy F Benny]

Imagine writing novel length posts over some drama on a shitty message board

[BIONIC]

Imagine writing novel length posts over some drama on a shitty message board

Imagine reading it