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Hello. I'm not really around the Board anymore for various reasons that I won't get into here, but I am still on the Discord. I have to be, because I'm the channel administration, And as the channel administrator, I'm the one who makes the final decision on bans and the like (upon taking proper consultation from my moderators, of course). So if anyone should be taken to task for bans, let it be me.

Now, regarding the incident being discussed here. First off, I removed the Heavy Stuff channel because of both user complaints and concerns from the mods. After looking at the channel itself, I agreed that it should be removed and did so. As for the trolling, Delta and Maslab showed me logs pertaining to the behavior of the two individuals in question. I found the details presented to me sufficient enough evidence to warrant bans. In regards to Grimalkinii himself, I (and the mods) came to the conclusion that he was not presenting himself in good faith, and was instead acting as a sort of supporter for Pentagon.

I trust the judgments of the mods. They have demonstrated to me on multiple occasions that they are more than capable of doing their jobs without great bias. Yes, they're not perfect, but no one is.

And their jobs? Personally, I'm in agreement with Nesh's description. A good mod should make the Discord a safe and engaging place. They must fairly enforce the rules. They also have to address issues like trolls or overt hostility in a timely and effective manner. These are not easy tasks. We are but mortals. And the Constitution only works when people are going to act in good faith.

I am more than willing to take suggestions regarding the Discord into account. I liked the idea of creating a specific chat channel dedicated entirely to writing, so that's been done. I am also open to the idea of additional mods. It's tough for three people to monitor a 24-hour chatroom. I'm not sold on the idea of splitting the channel, but I'm open to receiving arguments on the subject.

PC

See I was reading it as Mythcreant saying that Bram said that essentially they were banned because 'brown people' were mad at them. The reason why I put brown people in quotes is because reading back through the logs without context it looks to me like Bram is insulting people of colour (sorry, don't quite know what the politically correct term is so went for this one. I'm not trying to offend here), when the comments are made about the racist remarks. Fully reading through it it's not, but it could be construed as such.

So how I saw this was Mythcreant paraphrasing what Bram had said, rather than Mythcreant having a go at the people who had agreed to ban Bram themsleves.

I hope that makes sense? Although to be fair we could both be misreading the comment, the only person who could tell us the true meaning of it is Mythcreant.

Myth did not come here to be a part of the community. They came here to cause trouble.

We don't want them around because they are Bramandin, and we have gone over this matter so many times we're beating the half-eaten carcass of a dead horse now. She's been banned not once, but twice, and now you want to give her the chance to make it a third? Because that's what "Myth" wants, to negotiate her way back into the PPC to keep on going.

I get physically sick to my stomach when I have to remember the crap she put me specifically through. I have nightmares about it. You remember why she got temporarily banned in the first place? For harrassing me? Because I do. And what I'm hearing is "You're all wrong for not wanting to give her another chance to do it again."

On political discussion in the PPC:

Like you said, this is tricky to navigate. I'm also not sure there's a good answer to "what should the state of political discussion in the PPC be?". However, I believe that we can generally keep things from spiraling out of control and that we don't need (and, per Plith, shouldn't) ban political topics entirely.

In other words, I'm not seeing "politics" as a problem that needs immediate solving, since we're doing a fairly good job of keeping a handle on it. The one thing I'm concerned about is the conflicting access needs around tragedies etc. that prompted the creation of #heavystuff, which is why I'm proposing an expansion of what you're expected to rot13 in chat to include that sort of thing.

Again, I think we can do (and generally are doing) a good job of self-regulating on this.

On our political lean:

Let's admit it: there are views (which are, at this time, a matter of politics) that will get you banned if you insist on holding/acting on them openly. For example, if someone kept intentionally (after being told to knock it off) using he/him pronouns for Delta after finding out she happened to be trans, they'd be out the door real fast because that violates Article 2 and we just won't have it here. There's a noticable number of people out there who think that operating this way is wrong (and a somewhat small subset of them who would say it's causing the end of civilization as we know it).

In addition, if we look at the political compass thread from January, we aren't a political monolith or massively intolerant, but we do seem to have something of a lean, especially towards being progressive on social issues. This could be a case of self-selection, given things like Article 2 in the constitution.

That being said, we have managed (and I'm not so pessimistic as to think we won't be able to do it in the future) to support a community of people with noticeably different views on, say, gun control without turning into an uncontrolled flamefest (#heavystuff partially excepted, since there were people in there trying to calm things down although it didn't work).

So, we could say the PPC is a rather tolerant place, but there are limits to that, which I'd like to think we've done a good job of articulating.

- Tomash

Here, have some chocolate and enjoy your stay!

And don't worry, you're not the only one tired of drama. Thanks for the heads-up though.

I should of made this clearer when I posted this. I do not dispute a kicking of Mythcreant, what I am disputing is the permanent ban as it now means that they no longer have the ability to defend themselves in this matter in any reasonable way. Added onto the fact that not only do I now not have any means of communicating with them, but none of us do.

If I were in Mythcreants shoes at this point. I wouldn't want to return no matter what the final decision is, you've all made it pretty obvious to them that you don't want them around.

Novastorme

I read it as Mythcreant saying that Bramandin was banned because brown people were mad at them, which left me speechless when I read it. Perhaps I misread the comment, but it struck me as offensive.

So I just went on Discord and noticed this in the upstairs channel (where the mods talk):

"[9:06 PM] PoorCynic: A permanent ban has been put into place for user Mythcreant."

Too soon?

Because here's what I'm seeing:

Iximaz-Today at 10:35 AM
So are you or are you not actually Bramandin?
Mythcreant-Today at 10:35 AM
Nope.
Iximaz-Today at 10:35 AM
Right. Forgive me if I don’t believe you.
I’m stepping away from this now.
Mythcreant-Today at 10:38 AM
I know my city isn't very big, but what are the statistics on two people coming from the same area?
I mean, you get 30 people in the same room, 2 of them are almost certain to share the same birthday.

I mean, the only problem I see with that is the Birthday Paradox bit, and that's because IIRC you need at least 30 people to be in the same room for it to be certain, not almost certain. And the only reason I know that is because I had to research it as part of my postgrad studies. Looking at the rest of that conversation I don't really see a callous remark about the people involved in banning Bram. The closest I can see is this:

"Mythcreant-Today at 10:59 AM
That's a new one. The comments I read was that brown people were scowling at them."

Which while potentially inaccurate, is not really a callous remark, let alone aimed at the people who banned Bram.

"Those spinoffs [hosted on fanfiction.net] would be difficult to find on the PPC wiki."

Not really? Spin-offs aren't listed by platform. If you look for missions in a particular department, you get a list ordered by number of stories and then alphabetically by agent name. If you look for missions in a particular fandom, you get a list ordered by agent name or by story name. If you look through the Killed Badfic lists, you get missions ordered by fandom, then by story name. I think the chances of hitting on something on ff.net would relate mostly to how old the spin-off is, and would tend to correlate with fandoms that were popular when the PPC was new, such as LotR and Harry Potter.

There's also a good chance of finding missions on ff.net if you're poking into the PPC's history, checking out references on department pages and such. Making that sort of information easier to access is a big part of what the wiki is for.

~Neshomeh

A very polite knock at the door roused Kaitlyn from contemplation of the next season's corset fashions. Upon answering, she found herself looking up at an exceedingly tall and captivating man. He was bald, but every centimeter of visible skin was tattooed with bright gold runic script. He had deep, soulful eyes in a face that was hard to describe, but seemed somehow familiar. He was dressed in pilgrim's robes of dove-gray, and carried a handful of palm leaves like a bouquet.

"Hello," he said. "Are you Kaitlyn?"

"For you, definitely," she said. "Who are you?"

"I am Lorgar Aurelian, sometimes called the Urizen. I was told you were a priestess. I have come to worship you."

"Former priestess," Kaitlyn pointed out, "and don't you mean 'worship with me'?"

"I do not. I seek someone worthy of devotion. You, a former priestess, perhaps understand the joy in humility, the release in giving praise. Benevolent Kaitlyn, will you not receive my prayers?"

"How..." Kaitlyn swallowed an inexplicable mouthful of drool, "how would you go about worshipping me, exactly?"

Lorgar blinked his lovely eyes. "On my knees, of course."

Kaitlyn looked at him, then herself, and then the likeliest pieces of furniture in the room behind her. "Maybe if I piled a bunch of pillows on the bed...?"

"A most fitting altar." The Primarch smiled.

"Well then. I guess you'd better mosey on in, and bring your pilgrims to my holy shrine." She beckoned with one finger, and the Urizen followed.

~~~~

I did the other thing! I thought I'd get more jokes out of the premise, but I think the point gets across. {= )

Sorry for giving you more robes to draw, hS.

~Neshomeh

First, Nova, I think you make very good points for the most part. You're right; it's all but impossible to prove for a fact that Mythcreant is Zdimensia. From what I've read, all we really have is circumstantial evidence (though there is a lot of that).

But I want to look at this particular thing you said: "Now with respect to the changing stories of how well Mythcreant knew Zdimensia, if you knew someone who'd been banned or barred from a community would you openly mention it to them when you first came in and wanted them to accept you? I know I certainly wouldn't." That's a good point and would explain a lot of Mythcreant's behavior early in the logs, but when they were asked point-blank if they were Zdimensia/Bramandin, that would've been the time to come clean. Instead, Mythcreant made a rather callous remark about the people involved in banning Bramandin.

Also looking at the logs, Mythcreant's knowledge of the PPC went well beyond a wiki walk. They referenced spinoffs hosted on fanfiction.net, a platform from which the PPC was kicked because of the nature of what the PPC does. Those spinoffs would be difficult to find on the PPC wiki.

In doubles battles you've got to consider how many pokemon your moves hit, for example moves like Earthquake, Discharge and Surf hit all the pokemon besides the user, including allies. Whereas moves like Heat Wave and Rock Slide will hit both enemies. You've also got to consider moves like Ally Switch or Heal Pulse that are meant to target allies, not enemies and so are useless in single battles. Finally moves like Trick Room or Tailwind see a lot more use in Double battles, as well as weather conditions alongside abilities that benefit within said weather, for example Sandstorm and Sand Force, or Hail and Ice Body.

Have a pile of multi coloured pens.

I understand what you're saying, and I'm sorry for putting you in the hot seat. I don't think you're obligated to be Mythcreant's advocate or anything; but I do think it is the responsibility of all members to speak out if they disagree with a procedure like this. I very much appreciate that you've done so. Thank you.

I absolutely agree with you that we should presume innocence until guilt is proven. I believe Mythcreant was given that chance when her request for the IP to be unblocked was granted.

I think your interpretation is reasonable, and if it weren't for the history of Zdimensia repeatedly deceiving us to try to get back into the community, which you mention yourself, I'd be far more inclined toward it. However, like I said in my initial post, I think the far simpler and therefore more likely explanation is that this is Zdimensia performing yet another deception with the same goal of getting back into the community.

I also agree with Ix that, even on the outside chance this is a different person, they immediately decided they needed to grind an axe with us over an issue we've hashed and rehashed already, and we have no obligation to let them drag it up again.

And, for a completely subjective point, I was right when I recognized Makkara as Zdimensia the last time, by more or less the same criteria of mannerisms. (Her difficulty remembering or using the names of stories and agents, and the way she talks about them, is a particularly strong ping on my radar.) I'm inclined to trust my gut on this.

This isn't me closing the debate, though. This is me explaining why I see it the way I do. If there are others who see it differently, I'd very much like for them to say so.

~Neshomeh

As GMA points out, many things are political in nature, including some things that are deeply, importantly personal for some people (e.g. gay marriage—I guarantee that's not "light" for everyone) and other things that seem to many of us like what should be clear questions of wrong and right. Political identities are nearly synonymous with moral values. That's due to the extremely polarized state of the world we live in today. It wasn't like this, at least not to such an intense degree, ten or fifteen years ago, when the Board was new.

That's why I wonder if leaving all that stuff to communities intended for it might be best at this time. We're not a political forum; we are a writing and community forum. It used to be possible to have rational discussions about different political viewpoints here, but that was before the issues were so radicalized.

But then again, we do have a very clear ideological statement in our Constitution that happens to align with a political identity. Maybe we are political whether we like it or not, and to pretend otherwise and make this a place where we stick our heads in the sand would be an insult to us all.

I think Grundleplith is dead-on with this post, where they say "The main issue really is that stifling discussion will make some people angry, whereas a lack of filtering will hurt others."

Because, yeah: we're all in different places in our personal growth and development, and we don't all share the same passions/fears/concerns to the same degree. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does make this stuff difficult to navigate. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if there can really be one.

One thing we can do is constantly remind ourselves to be compassionate and understanding with each other (and ourselves!), even—especially—when it's hard. We can try to live the values of the ideal world we want.

That's not an answer or a solution, but it might be a way toward one.

~Neshomeh

Even on the highly unlikely chance Myth isn't Bram, they still came here with the intent of stirring up trouble and demanding we unban Bram after that case was closed and done. They didn't come here acting in good faith, threatening to make things worse if we refused to consider taking Bram back, and I see no reason why they should not be banned as well.

Ignore the drama and get in touch with your creative side! Enjoy this metaphorical notebook for you to practice writing (if that’s your style).

Yeah, this is a rotten time to join up if you have a Thing about drama. But we're keeping that on the Board for now, in its designated threads, so that the better parts of our community can continue to be.

But hey, since you're here, have a full set of dice! You get to choose your pattern. And as consolation for the shoddy patch you joined during, have this set of steel-plated trousers. You never know where the spikes will be when you're trying to sit down.