Bannings

[KarmaBum]

I forgot this thread was here. I stand by my “let Derp’s forum lie” mentality, but also…

Derp has been completely honest about why certain bans were lifted and others weren’t: He doesn’t like us.

Which is completely fair. I don’t like him, either.
When he was made admin, I had every intention of just bouncing. But I realize now that I fucking care about this community, and he doesn’t, so I’m glad I came back.

I don’t expect to ever be unbanned there. Derp can’t handle people speaking truth to him, especially women.

The community that was WORA - that Arkandel handed over to Ganymede - isn’t fractured. It’s right fucking here.

WORA has never been an immutable line in the sand. It’s always a party that’s popped up at someone’s house 'cause their parents were out of town.

When Nymeria threatened copyright infringement and we had to flee off Proboards (or whatever that was), the community moved to a new location. This is the same thing: Ganymede torched our old neighborhood and gave the keys to Derp, so we just moved on.

[Narson]

Just going to say, as the one who got banned for asking why @Arkandel didn’t get banned when the beam of light that is @Snackness did, I absolutely don’t think any of that is on Arkandel and people shouldn’t even jokingly put him in the middle. As Ark says, we all know why, and as Karma says, we know why some bans weren’t lifted.

In the choice between my friendship with @Roz and @Tez (and the occasional arguments we have) or being able to post on a place that no longer has anyone I really care about on it, I know where I am and while it hurts to be excluded and lied about, I’m quite content and people don’t need to fret.

I mean, I’ve put hard work into getting Tez to understand Narsonese, so when I go ‘Not Alfred…damn it. Isaacs. Moon fellow. Jason!’ they know who I mean.

[kalakh]

My sleep schedule has been so flipped around the past half year that it’s like I work night shift without actually working night shift, so it was a trip to wake up one afternoon to a Discord DM mentioning that MSB had imploded. I wasn’t following the politics thread and had completely missed Derp being made admin, so it came as one hell of a surprise.

I was going to leave from the start, I’m fairly sure, but I did make an attempt at explaining what had gone wrong from my perspective, and that I didn’t think it likely the damage could be repaired (but if it could, it was going to take some serious effort at regaining trust). At the same time, seeing posts both in the thread I was posting in and elsewhere on the board that were basically saying different versions of ‘gtfo if you don’t like it’, was what convinced me to log out and never log back in again. I might have been one of those folks straddling both forums, but it was pretty clear people like me weren’t wanted then and it’s even more clear now. That’s okay. I’m irritated at other folks getting smeared and insulted, and increasingly incredulous at the modding decisions, but I’m not particularly upset about leaving MSB for BMD. Particularly since I can see the next explosion just sitting there waiting for another spark. They can spin themselves whatever fiction they like, but the community there isn’t going to improve if the folks with the loudest voices aren’t willing to change.

If the posts that Selira, Meg, and Solstice were making are what counts as bullying and shit stirring now, to the point people are sending DMs to the mods about how unsafe they feel because some folks are being critical, then…I don’t even know? People are going to feel what they feel, but it’s baffling to me. And one of the admin posting a DM like that, even with permission, boggles the mind, because the only possible reason for it was to go “look how upset you’re making people by disagreeing with us in a largely reasonable if occasionally snarky way”, and that after asking for honest feedback (immediately and condescendingly dismissed). So. Yeah. That’s not the kind of environment that promotes positivity and trust, it’s the kind of environment that’s going to melt down as soon as some of the regulars get into a spat with each other.

In any case, I agree that a thread like this is probably pretty healthy and cathartic for a lot of folks, though I do think that if it stops being that for someone (if you’re just getting frustrated and upset, but airing your feelings here isn’t helping), they should know that it’s okay to just step out. It’s easy to get caught up in things and not feel as though you can, there’s an injustice that needs to be righted, etc, but you need to take care of you. Vent, but don’t let yourself boil. You deserve better.

[Snackness]

@Narson I am not a beam of light how dare

[hellfrog]

@Snackness I agree that was a really fucked up thing for Narson to say

[tsar]

@hellfrog said in Bannings:

@Snackness I agree that was a really fucked up thing for Narson to say

How dare he talk about my wife like that!!!

[junipersky]

@Snackness

Right. You are a RAINBOW.

[Selira]

the bullying by @Narson is out of control!!!

I’m happy to see both boards openly saying, hey, people, you can be in both boards, and I’m happy to see a lot more people coming over here. I hope people end up in a spot where they feel comfortable, and I do actually feel like there’s more … finality to things right now.

I think, overall, I’m pretty okay with that outcome from yesterday.

[Tori]

I totally get people talking this out because I have no doubt it helps to be heard. Maybe especially when feeling gaslit and manipulated.

For me, and like I think I wrote in my post when I left there, the people who were banned or leaving were the people I thought were the better of the whole blow up. That made leaving easy for me because really, that place doesn’t have the people I enjoy reading and interacting with anymore.

Also, I cling to this thing I learned in therapy when I went through some shit: trust that they suck. I know I have often tried to make people see reason IRL, or believe if I point out the FACTS, that they will eventually go OH! But it rarely happens. I’m not always great at this, either, but I try. There’s nothing in it for certain people to own their shit, so they won’t. So I just trust that some of them suck, which is nothing I can do about, and go where I feel people don’t. I am SUPER glad BMD exists and am grateful to y’all for making it happen

[mietze]

I’m so glad there is a space for people to process their feelings, not only as individuals but together. We may “just” be an online community and some of the meeting places may “just” be a message board but it is a real community, and when stuff breaks down it can really hurt.

I don’t want anyone to misconstrue my quietness to mean I don’t care. I do, very much. It’s been hard to see my name invoked in things that are incorrect to me (though I can see why it was done so), or to back up things by people who were hurtful to me personally. But sometimes that’s what happens when people are arguing or trying to cope with what they need to cope with and I’m not angry about it.

I’m not a saint, or some great person and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think me being present during the blow up would have changed anything, I don’t and never did have that much power. For that same reason I don’t think anyone else could influence the decisions that have been made either, except for the people that are right now making them. I thought that stepping down would relieve stress (and it did), and that it would be enough (it wasn’t), because the minute I stupidly engaged in a discussion that I should have known how it would turn out, a lot of that hurt came right back to the surface and for my part in that I’m very sorry, it’s hard to not feel like that didn’t instigate something that shouldn’t have been. I thought I was getting to be over it, but I’m not.

It’s hard to lose access to a place that you once felt like you had a part in. Or to feel less welcome and safe. Regardless of justification but especially when it doesn’t feel like it was and it was abrupt. It’s hard to let go of that and stop looking/reading/whatever. It may not even be appropriate for some people, and that’s of course a decision that has to be made for yourself. I wish I could say something that would help, but I also know I can’t. There’s nothing to say. It did not happen for me on the boards this time, but I have experienced it elsewhere and it was bewildering and angering and made me feel more grief that I thought I should.

To say this has been a dark time for me would be an understatement. Yes, 90 percent of it is factors other than what happened, but what happened triggered some pretty serious things that I still have to be very careful about (as I discovered last night too). I guess I’m not over that either.

There have been several times in the history of “the community” where different boards have existed (and yes even rivalries–ask the dinosaurs, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I think it’s easier now to find/hang on to the friends that you want, and refind others as time goes on. I’ve had friends in this hobby that were close, and then a falling out ended things for years, and then we reconnected stronger than ever. And other relationships with folks that just…didn’t ever re-engage–and that’s okay too. Real life, right? It doesn’t make it less painful in the moment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I do really love you guys. I wish things had happened differently. I wish I’d been more capable, or it had been a better moment for a whole bunch of people. That things didn’t bubble up exactly the way that they did, because while I can see why people say it’d been building up for awhile, I don’t think it was the best for anyone how it happened. I wish that we all didn’t have so much other shit in our lives that sometimes makes stuff in THIS community feel like the last straw. I think whatever place you land at, and are able to settle into community is good. And yes, even if it’s both. Sometimes having an alternative that you feel more comfortable on and that becoming the new main (or the old main)–that’s a good thing. There doesn’t even have to be a comparison. I like what’s building here. I hope with more hands on deck both here and at MSB people will be able to build what they want. Hats off to the team here for being able to take something like this on board when a lot of the people are grieving at least a little. Sometimes that’s taking on some hard stuff that you don’t notice until later, but I think you are amazing.

[tsar]

@mietze said in Bannings:

I wish I’d been more capable,

Of all the many many many many many many weird things this was about, it was never about you being capable. You’re not responsible for a bunch of people losing their minds (me included).

[Testament]

@mietze Whatever is or was happening in your life at the time when this all went down was your priority.

These forums, all this text? It is not and never will be worth the emotional health of anyone. You had your own battles to wage, and mush forums do not take top billing.

If there is anyone who can’t understand it, well…needless to say, take care of you and your loved ones. That runs first. All this? It means far less.

[Snackness]

@mietze Okay but are you sure you’re not a saint?

[bear_necessities]

@mietze I don’t know you well at all, but I do know you are friends with some of my most favorite people who generally have good taste in the people they associate with. I think in the heat of the moment, there was a lot of hurt and confusion and probably temporary insanity, but never once did anyone blame you or thought you could fix things … honestly, most of us were just super angry that you were being used as an excuse for the bad behavior that was going on, because you didn’t deserve that.

I don’t really know what else to say except that I like this little community we’ve built and a lot of good has come out of it already.

[Pavel]

@Arkandel said in Bannings:

Now the community seems fractured. Hopefully it is a problem that will fix itself.

Honestly, I don’t see communities fracturing as a problem that needs fixing. Sure, the way it happens is a bag of suck wrapped in crap coated in a thin layer of “I can’t believe it’s not irony.” But it’s like cell division. We go off and do our thing, they go off and do theirs, and the community grows from it.

[GF]

@Pavel said in Bannings:

Honestly, I don’t see communities fracturing as a problem that needs fixing. Sure, the way it happens is a bag of suck wrapped in crap coated in a thin layer of “I can’t believe it’s not irony.” But it’s like cell division. We go off and do our thing, they go off and do theirs, and the community grows from it.

I think it depends on context. The fracturing of MSB was in response to an injustice, however trivial that injustice might be in the grand scheme of things. That injustice has not been corrected and is still being perpetuated, which seems to me like it must eventually become a problem for the whole community as resentment and distrust fester.

[Pavel]

@GF said in Bannings:

@Pavel said in Bannings:

Honestly, I don’t see communities fracturing as a problem that needs fixing. Sure, the way it happens is a bag of suck wrapped in crap coated in a thin layer of “I can’t believe it’s not irony.” But it’s like cell division. We go off and do our thing, they go off and do theirs, and the community grows from it.

I think it depends on context. The fracturing of MSB was in response to an injustice, however trivial that injustice might be in the grand scheme of things. That injustice has not been corrected and is still being perpetuated, which seems to me like it must eventually become a problem for the whole community as resentment and distrust fester.

Sure, maybe. But we ain’t gonna fix it, that has to be on them to want to fix. And right now they don’t want to, or can’t, or whatever. Better to focus on ourselves and doing right by our slice of the community, in my view.

[Arkandel]

@GF said in Bannings:

I think it depends on context. The fracturing of MSB was in response to an injustice, however trivial that injustice might be in the grand scheme of things. That injustice has not been corrected and is still being perpetuated, which seems to me like it must eventually become a problem for the whole community as resentment and distrust fester.

The unfortunate thing about ‘responding to an injustice’ is the over-correction. There is already an us-versus-them mentality where just who ‘us’ and ‘them’ are isn’t always clear.

But it’s divisive, and easily exploited. Some folks are banned from one forum; some feel unwelcome in the other. Some are in the in-crowd on one, some are not.

Now, I’m a relic of a different era so hopefully I’m wrong. But I don’t have to like it.

[Testament]

@GF said in Bannings:

@Pavel said in Bannings:

Honestly, I don’t see communities fracturing as a problem that needs fixing. Sure, the way it happens is a bag of suck wrapped in crap coated in a thin layer of “I can’t believe it’s not irony.” But it’s like cell division. We go off and do our thing, they go off and do theirs, and the community grows from it.

I think it depends on context. The fracturing of MSB was in response to an injustice, however trivial that injustice might be in the grand scheme of things. That injustice has not been corrected and is still being perpetuated, which seems to me like it must eventually become a problem for the whole community as resentment and distrust fester.

In my opinion, I think these are things that have always existed in the mush community. Resentment and distrust has always been thing. Distrust of staff, resentment of other players getting X thing or perceived preference, etc etc, the list goes on. While I’d agree that just because it’s existed doesn’t mean you have to accept it. But there has to be a willingness to accept that I doubt these aspects or facets of the community are ever going to truly go away.

Realistically, how would that injustice be resolved? I feel the damage has already been done. Even if MSB is wiped clean, it’s staff admonished and shunned, you can’t exactly punish people for how they run a forum. You can’t fire them or call the cops on them. Beyond that, would anyone here truly wish to go back to it after everything that has already occurred? Maybe, but I feel the number would be low as we’ve already heard people state that they wouldn’t.

There has always been schisms within the muverse. A game is run poorly, a number of disenfranchised players will go make their own game in an attempt to ‘do better’ than the original. There will always be this person who ‘hates this staffer’ and this person will defend them to their dying breath. These are things we’ve all seen countless times. If anything, this suggests that we’re doing what we’ve always done, even if that means what we’ve always done isn’t always good. I think the only way to correct that behavior is that people have to change. And people, well, humans are gonna human, for better or worse.

[Meg]

@Arkandel said in Bannings:

some feel unwelcome in the other.

i will say about this: it’s very clear that there are some people that will feel ‘unwelcome’ wherever people actually have a voice to call them out. like, people felt ‘unsafe’ and ‘bullied’ by my very reasonable posts on the other forum.

of course those same people are going to feel unwelcome literally everywhere my name is attached. because the issue isn’t what we say or do; it’s the judgement that they’ve already attached to us.