Hi @Jenn ,

I’m happy to affirm that Pika is no longer associated with RetroMux. She stepped down from staff shortly after I started back in November/December. Then in April there was a site outage, from what we could discover it was likely due to non-payment.

It seemed like the right time to officially part ways. We got a new host, new wiki, and removed all traces of her affiliation. It was also a good time to refocus on our intent to have a community first game, which so far has seemed pretty successful despite the rocky origin of the game.

I recognize this is my first post (yay!) but my account isn’t brand new, in fact I made it shortly after we got situated from pulling the new site together. My lack of prior posts really just sums up to the reputation this place and it’s ancestors have, which is a bit…intimidating, especially to someone relatively new to Mushing (less than three years). But I’ve been liking posts here and there, and debating chiming in. You finally got me to do it!

Hope this helps offer some reassurances on the Pika front. OH! And so no one has to fret over the ‘who is who’ game, I’m Ori, an HST and the Shifter Lead on RetroMux.

Hi @thrax ,

This definitely looks like only one small part of the story, including messages taken out of context (I do have the full conversation, it’s in the file). But to address your concerns-

We did try to weigh if this was conflict avoidance in play when reviewing Kahula’s situation. The problem with that is, she had a no contact order elsewhere on her by the player, and she obfuscated who she was across two games and discord, and SOUGHT OUT rp with that player specifically.

I don’t know about you, but if I tell someone that we aren’t good company for each other, and then find out months later that they hid who they were, on multiple platforms, and intentionally befriended me across multiple games, I would consider that some major red flag behavior and not an attempt to avoid conflict. It flirts with stalking territory frankly.

I don’t really think harrassment in any form is okay. Including outside the game. But it would be unrealistic to expect staff to address harrassment outside of the scope of the game. We do however address it in the game and take all tickets regarding it very serious, and the player harrassing her, was also banned at the same time for their own hosts of reasons.

Even with what I’ve shared here , it was only a part of the picture on why we reached the decision we did. Bannings are a laborous process, we often spend days if not weeks discussing and reviewing the material we have, and weigh the decision against the good of the community as a whole.

I understand many people use this hobby as a way to escape or cope with their own mental health struggles, and/or the world at large. I have in fact built my sphere and how we approach things with mental health in mind, we often can accomadate for ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and other mental health issues by adjusting stories, engagement, and how information is shared. But it is important to remember that neither the staff nor the playerbase are trained therapists and should not be held to the expectation of fulfilling that function.

So in summary, we absolutely took into account the reasons she might have hid who she was, the idea it was conflict avoidance unfortunately didn’t hold up to scrutiny. Hope that clarity helps.

P.S. I don’t know the policy here, but many places it’s poor form to offer up someone’s discord without permission.

Hi @thrax ,

This definitely looks like only one small part of the story, including messages taken out of context (I do have the full conversation, it’s in the file). But to address your concerns-

We did try to weigh if this was conflict avoidance in play when reviewing Kahula’s situation. The problem with that is, she had a no contact order elsewhere on her by the player, and she obfuscated who she was across two games and discord, and SOUGHT OUT rp with that player specifically.

I don’t know about you, but if I tell someone that we aren’t good company for each other, and then find out months later that they hid who they were, on multiple platforms, and intentionally befriended me across multiple games, I would consider that some major red flag behavior and not an attempt to avoid conflict. It flirts with stalking territory frankly.

I don’t really think harrassment in any form is okay. Including outside the game. But it would be unrealistic to expect staff to address harrassment outside of the scope of the game. We do however address it in the game and take all tickets regarding it very serious, and the player harrassing her, was also banned at the same time for their own hosts of reasons.

Even with what I’ve shared here , it was only a part of the picture on why we reached the decision we did. Bannings are a laborous process, we often spend days if not weeks discussing and reviewing the material we have, and weigh the decision against the good of the community as a whole.

I understand many people use this hobby as a way to escape or cope with their own mental health struggles, and/or the world at large. I have in fact built my sphere and how we approach things with mental health in mind, we often can accomadate for ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and other mental health issues by adjusting stories, engagement, and how information is shared. But it is important to remember that neither the staff nor the playerbase are trained therapists and should not be held to the expectation of fulfilling that function.

So in summary, we absolutely took into account the reasons she might have hid who she was, the idea it was conflict avoidance unfortunately didn’t hold up to scrutiny. Hope that clarity helps.

P.S. I don’t know the policy here, but many places it’s poor form to offer up someone’s discord without permission.

Hi @Jenn ,

I’m happy to affirm that Pika is no longer associated with RetroMux. She stepped down from staff shortly after I started back in November/December. Then in April there was a site outage, from what we could discover it was likely due to non-payment.

It seemed like the right time to officially part ways. We got a new host, new wiki, and removed all traces of her affiliation. It was also a good time to refocus on our intent to have a community first game, which so far has seemed pretty successful despite the rocky origin of the game.

I recognize this is my first post (yay!) but my account isn’t brand new, in fact I made it shortly after we got situated from pulling the new site together. My lack of prior posts really just sums up to the reputation this place and it’s ancestors have, which is a bit…intimidating, especially to someone relatively new to Mushing (less than three years). But I’ve been liking posts here and there, and debating chiming in. You finally got me to do it!

Hope this helps offer some reassurances on the Pika front. OH! And so no one has to fret over the ‘who is who’ game, I’m Ori, an HST and the Shifter Lead on RetroMux.