Don’t forget we moved!
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Liberation MUSH
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@Roz Oooh, yeah, I understand. That’s terrible behavior on his part and I understand now why you feel the way you do.
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@Cobalt I understand. Frankly I have a lot of people that I love in the mush community that others do not. Some of them are even people I would never game with again, to be honest.
However, I have been the recipient of his attacks when he throws his fits, when I staffed at the same game. I did not take it real personal because at that point I’d seen him belittle and attack people so much on the staff channel I could practically recite along to what he was going to say. And I just continued to work with the person whom he was “defending” from a horrific staffer like myself so that we could sort out and I could help them mediate with a few players and the issue was resolved before he was done slinging his silly passive aggressive and aggressive-aggressive comments on the staff channel. This happened /several/ times with stuff I was handling (and that he shouldn’t have been reading the jobs for either! People used to think he did that on the regular but honestly I chalk it up to probably his friend vented to him and he decided to throw a fit going off half cocked certainly without their permission or knowledge. And frankly, staff people trying to do special things/favors for friends was kind of a lot less spoken up about or expected to not happen then as it is now. And it’s not like it still doesn’t happen now.)
So I respect that you may not have witnessed or had it done to you. It doesn’t mean that he didn’t do those things. And regardless by no means does it mean that you shouldn’t love him or that he isn’t a wonderful part of your chosen family. People are complicated. They don’t have to be devious or fake for people to have vastly different experiences with them game to game. I’m sure he’s a lovely person OOC with folks he cares about.
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@mietze I’m not sure how to phrase this, hopefully it doesn’t come across as dismissive or apologetic on his behalf. I’m sorry that is your experience with him. I wish everyone could know Thenomain as I do. As you mentioned people are complicated and that expectation is unrealistic. I can’t apologize for him-- nor would I cause I don’t know what his motivations were when he was interacting with you. But I am genuinely sorry that your experience with him was so negative.
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@Cobalt Oh, no need to be sorry! I just wanted to be clear that when I said what I said, it wasn’t from rumors, but direct experience and witness. It’s why I also mentioned that I’d not seen the behavior he displayed on other games more recently that I found out he was on. So maybe he’s mellowed out–or because I’m not staffing he’s able to confine it to staffchan rather that it bleeding over to player chans like it used to. That’s awesome and I’m glad for it. I do genuinely believe that he’s probably a lovely person with people he cares about. I am not one of those people, I’m a stranger. And was a stranger at the time who was dealing with an issue with his upset friend. I also suspect (from other people I am close to that have similar issues of past behavior) that when someone is very stressed outside of the game these behaviors increase. That game was an extremely stressful environment on its own, plus who knows what else was going on. I’m not shocked that someone would be wary of him if they’d seen him in action at same time I did (especially soneone as rigid and reactionary as Polk comes across as being), it wouldn’t come out of nowhere. However, Polk is still the jackass in that situation, and it shows his inability to read the situation that he’d ever engage in a “him or me” standoff with someone with frankly better diverse and proven talents. With the capacity, as I said earlier, to be charming, an excellent RPer, story ideas, ect. A temper can sometimes outweigh those if one doesn’t have a handle on it, but half of Theno is going to still tip the balance in favor of a half a Theno over 3 Polks.
I think anyone who’s not the gamerunner who shuts down a game like that should be persona non grata for a LONG time.
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re: Theno
I will say that when we both staffed on The Reach we clashed and rubbed each other the wrong way a LOT; but aside from any maturing I’ve done, I’ve seen Thenomain change in his view about people, the way he relates to them, the amount of patience he shows now vs. back then when it comes to figuring out other people’s intentions and quirks, etc.
I can’t testify for anything he’s done in the past, but the Thenomain I know now is a reasonably chill guy who gets really excited when his code works and is used. Does he still make jokes some people don’t find funny, maybe. But I think everyone does that. It hardly merits someone losing their shit the way Polk did, imo.
In Occam I trust.
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@Coin I’ve found him likewise to be an amazing and engaging, sometimes-troubled person - and I’d prefer an acre of Thenomains to a square inch of Polk.
He’s helped me considerably over the years and I have little save praise for his journey. Polk, well - the folder with my logged conversations with him is rightfully named “Batshittery”.
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@Coin said in Liberation MUSH:
It hardly merits someone losing their shit the way Polk did, imo.
FWIW I don’t think anybody has expressed thinking that it did. Everyone seems in pretty universal agreement that Polk’s reaction was absolutely wild and beyond the pale of a reasonable response. Just that ALSO some folks wouldn’t want to have either party on staff.
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@Roz said in Liberation MUSH:
@Coin said in Liberation MUSH:
It hardly merits someone losing their shit the way Polk did, imo.
FWIW I don’t think anybody has expressed thinking that it did. Everyone seems in pretty universal agreement that Polk’s reaction was absolutely wild and beyond the pale of a reasonable response. Just that ALSO some folks wouldn’t want to have either party on staff.
It’s always a wonder when someone can’t pick up on obvious sarcasm – even if the sarcasm isn’t funny – and explodes about needing to be respectful, and is also the same type of person who insists that other people are “unstable” and “offended” when they’re called out on an insensitive comment made about someone’s gender or sexuality.
Edit: I was being sarcastic, it’s not actually a wonder but wholly expected. Figured I’d clarify just in case.
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@somasatori or someone who is happy to enjoy/feel entitled to second+ chances with a staffer willing to be careless/reckless enough to appease them, while pointing the finger at the other person’s past behavior!
And yet. So unsurprising.
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@mietze That was a wild part of the thread, the whole “I’m confident this will blow over and Sundance will come crawling to ask me back.” I feel like I could hear the smugness in his fingers as he typed that out, his lips quivering into a self-satisfied smirk.
they/them
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@somasatori That’s a compelling visual.
Polk, with a quivering lip. Yikes.
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@Roz Ah, I see. I don’t see that as misusing player info personally, though I can understand why it would make people mad. Maybe misusing admin privileges at most, but a downvote isn’t really personal information in the same way as an email address or real name, etc. The way it was framed made it sound like he doxxed people or something.
That’s not to discount anyone’s feelings on the matter. I’m sure whomever he followed around the forums wasn’t enjoying it. But, for me personally, that’s not something that would get me to distrust him or any of his work.
People get mad, people get bitter, emotions run high on forums. All of that stuff is forgivable to me. People grow and learn from their mistakes. There’s plenty in the world of MU* to be weary of, like those who tear down the sandcastle when they lose their beach ball or the VASpiders of this hobby; a little trolling seems tame by comparison.
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@OnceWas Yeah, you know, not the finest thing I’ve ever written.
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@somasatori to be fair, he’s been tolerated through a lot it sounds like, and she’s been willing to lose/alienate many players to keep him on. Charity case or the “la la la who cares about the past” stubbornness, dunno. I don’t know too many other competent headwizzen who would need to remove someone twice from staff positions in spheres for cause and would still allow them staff access to not hurt their feelings and to allow them to continue to have a power hold on the game itself. So I can see why he’d think that it could be just handwaved away.
But I really hope that indeed at least this time something has been learned and the keys permanently taken away. And that there was a line that he could cross eventually. If not I kinda hope maybe more people will view it as a Not Just Polk problem.
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@mietze That’s a good point, and I agree. I don’t know what the dynamic there is, it seemed pretty toxic based on the back and forth. I personally like Sundance, so setting that aside: there is a poor precedent set in allowing someone to come back or taking half-measures in addressing problematic behavior. It’s good it seems like it was fully addressed, hopefully there are some new warning signs or alarm bells that come from this experience (e.g., people setting strong ultimatums, people using all-or-nothing thinking, people saying ‘you obviously don’t care about me because you won’t take my side when <X> happened’ and so on). It’s unfortunate it was allowed to go on as long as it did.
I admittedly don’t have a ton of involvement with the wider community these days, but this is definitely a Not Just Polk problem. Overbearing and abusive personalities have historically pushed to get their way on games; I’m sure they still do. We hear about the big blow-ups, but there are probably many small instances where someone feels obligated to hold someone in a position or people manipulating or bullying people into allowing them to retain even the smallest level of power. That log (which appears to have been removed from the thread) is a good example of what behavior is unacceptable to take from “friends.”
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did it get removed from the thread because people realized that every body in it came out looking very cringe*???
i gotta know.
*in varying levels of cringe
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@Meg It’s difficult to look suave in a monkey-shit fight.
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@OnceWas speak for yourself. i always look great.
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I still see the Imgur screenshot log. What got removed??
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Perhaps the person posting stuff that was obviously from Sundance’s screen that was shared probably in confidence (also an unwise move that real friends should have warned about) thought better of it (hopefully) or was asked by someone else to knock it off?
I hope that’s a lesson learned too, should be easy to figure out who broke confidence.
Oh Roz says its still up, so apparently no to realizing that was a not great thing to do.
