The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

((i.e. terrible))

Item: An interlude set during the formation of a whole new support division

Item: Two Doktor Trollenfisch und Gabrielle missions, one of which features never-before-seen minis, one of which is a fairly big deal

Item: Multiple crossovers involving Algie and Lola, though at least one is on the back burner for now.

Item: The planning of the big mission, Wayfinding. It's not big for "Super-Skerreh Legendary" reasons, though it definitely counts as a bleepfic, but for plot. What it concerns I cannot say, but I can tell you it's a crossover between multiple agent teams.

Aegis, don't you go trying to argue this. You'll just make yourself look like an ass.

(I don't even know how to deal with everything that's come out up-Board, so I'm starting here. Good god, y'all.)

Okay, so. Aegis. I understand that you are concerned for Iximaz's well-being. I am, too—and I apologize for talking about you of necessity here, Iximaz, but I believe I've expressed more or less what I'm about to say here to you before, so I hope it doesn't seem to come out of nowhere. Also, please know that this goes for anyone with mental health issues and the people who love them, not just you and Aegis.

Before going on, let me establish my credentials on this subject. I've been around the block with various forms of mental illness throughout my life (31 years, 32 this June, if anyone's wondering). Substance abuse, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder are all present in my family—all at once, in my dad's case. I've dealt with several friends when they were talking about suicide, one of whom was my boyfriend at the time. I've been in therapy and been prescribed medication for depression with anxiety myself. Also, my mom worked in the mental health field for roughly twenty years, and she taught me many skills that I've used to successfully navigate those situations.

Please bear all that in mind when I tell you, you need to understand that Iximaz must take responsibility for her own issues and her own choices. My understanding is that she had trust issues before joining the PPC, and that they may in fact be a symptom of her condition. If her illness prevents her from giving us an honest chance to prove that we will take her seriously, or from recognizing the good will of people toward her when it is rampantly on display, there isn't a single thing any of us can do about that. It's not our fault she has these deeply ingrained issues, and it's not our fault if she isn't doing what she needs to do to work through them.

Further, if she is not making responsible choices about when to interact with the community and when not to based on her mood/health status, that is not acceptable, and it falls to us as her friends to hold her accountable for it. We are not obliged to tolerate outbursts like this from anyone, especially not if we like them and wish to see them continue to be a valued member of the PPC community and society at large.

If she cannot make responsible choices for herself, that has very serious implications which go beyond what any of us can handle, because we are not trained mental health professionals. I caution you against making that argument unless you're prepared to accept those implications.

I believe, and I want Iximaz to believe, that she does have the power, the personal agency, the ability to make responsible choices for herself. It may take practice, and mistakes may happen, but that doesn't mean we should lower our expectations. That's as bad as saying she can't do it; see above paragraph.

So, yes, I stand by what I said, and I recommend that you think long and hard about whether denying Iximaz's responsibility for her actions is really helpful to her in the long run.

~Neshomeh

After a great deal of reflection, and more than a few conversations with certain parties, I agree that Tomash need not be banned, even if there is some punishment further than a loss of modship. What this further punishment would be, I am at a loss to.

However, I do stand by one earlier statement of mine. If we do impose a ban on Tomash, since this is, in essence, a retroactive application of the law, if anybody currently active has been accused of either revealing private information of another PPCer or harassing another PPCer, we should investigate those cases and try them according to the new methods.

Looking back at all of this, I have to agree with both sides of the argument here. Yes, doxxing is horrible and does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as any PPC boarder. Heck, it does not deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as anybody's Internet usernames anywhere, period. It's put lives at risk in the past, and a quick look at the article about it on Wikipedia has confirmed that it's actually led to the deaths of almost a dozen people since the 1990's. On a more personal level, when I got involved in drama a few years ago, I started worrying, albeit irrationally, that I'd be doxxed by at least a few of the others involved and suffer physical harm, or worse. I would never consider doxxing anyone I've fallen out with online, ever.

That being said, outright banning everyone involved in the entire discussion, even those who weren't there to see the screencap fiasco, will solve absolutely nothing and, I fear, may continue putting us in a negative light. Sure, I did chime in a few times when said screencap happened, but I only realized the gravity of what was going down at the time long after the fact. While I did drop out of the conversation due to being busy with personal matters, I PM'd Aegis later on and told him that I was firmly on your side, that this information should not be released publicly, and that doing so would come back to hurt everyone involved and couldn't be retracted. In hindsight I realize that a better course of action would have been to talk to Tomash directly and to tell him to delete the screencap from the Discord chat as well as his computer files if applicable (which is most likely the case). I apologize for not doing so immediately and also for not making a public attempt to decry the screencap incident while it was happening. My awful time management skills do not excuse the fact that I did nothing to stop this and if I have to deal with the consequences of my nonaction then I'm willing to accept them.

With that being said, however, outright banning every single participant in the whole conversation, including yourself, seems like an act of haste, and likely anger over the whole incident, as justified as it was. I don't know if the ban is from the Discord chat or from the PPC in its entirety, but shutting people out of this community just because they either were led by herd mentality to make a collective mistake will send a very bad message to anyone who happens upon the Board or other PPC-affiliated places online and thinks that we drop the banhammer willy-nilly for committing just one perceived offense.

I don't disagree that what Tomash did was unimaginably wrong, and I don't disagree that ganging up on July was just as bad. But making propositions out of sheer anger is likely to do more harm than good, especially in circumstances as dubious as this. I hope we can all learn from this, end this vicious cycle, and find a better way to handle drama, bullying, and general grossness, but I personally think insta-banning half the currently active PPC community because of one disastrous conversation is anything but that way.

I thought someone with authority here might step in and just say this was ridiculous, so since no one has, I shall voice my entirely un-authoritative opinion on the matter, which I do believe I made clear below.

This is ridiculous.

I won't speak on my own ban, because I think I made it clear enough (flippantly, but I don't think I was in the wrong) to talk about Tomash.

Yes, he made a mistake. No one here is denying that. But I also think taking away his position as a moderator is punishment enough. This is considering he posted a screenshot he shouldn't have posted in the heat of the moment when he assumed his friend was dead is not an action that calls for a ban.

Namely, because I don't see bans in this instance as a method for punishing people, but ways to eliminate nuisances from the PPC as a whole. I think that, on balance, Tomash's presence is a constructive one.

In summary I think that stripping him of modship is punishment enough, because what I see isn't indicative of a malicious presence in the PPC.

I personally do not believe I am worthy enough of being a mod on the Discord channel.

If you and a number of others disagree with me then I will take the burden up. But personally I think that there are other members of this community who would be a better mod than I.

Perhaps with a lessening on Tomash's ban, as due to the conversation with EvilAI, whether his actions were actually illegal or not is a bit of a grey area.

As to my actions, I would first like to say that, baring one post of Alleb's that I agreed with, I did not target July, nor did I intend to target July with anything that I said that day. I was there when it all... kicked off (admittedly it was around 4-5 in the morning for me and I hadn't gone to sleep yet so I wasn't sure what to expect upon waking up). As I now frequently do, I logged onto Discord on Thursday in the school library after a rather important meeting about my future on my course (not that it's that important, I just like putting all the details in (BTW it went well)), and I got on somewhere around 4pm (4:18pm is when I make my first post to be precise) and coming into the middle of the conversation, promptly forgot about the work I was meant to be doing and went to read up on everything that had happened (and then proceed to swear a lot at what had happened, silently of course (I was still in the library after all)).

Then at 4:21pm I make my first post, in which I'm generally talking about Ix's leaving post on the board, specifically expressing a wish to post something despite not really being around for much of what Ix was talking about apart from the Glarn incidents and I quote "but I know saying that to Ix will make it sound as if I was ignoring them, and I'm left in a really difficult place." I then also expressed interest in hearing SeaTurtle's side of the Brink incident, mostly because out of the three other people still in the PPC at that time who were involved with the incident, SeaTurtle is the one I trust, and think of as my friend, the most (No offence meant to Ekyl and Zingenmir).

After six or so minutes, I then make this post, in reference to the new rules that may or may not be introduced.
"Part of me wonders if it would be better for us to instead of keep fixing up the Constitution to scrap it and rebuild it from scratch, and then have some way of actually keeping people to it so that bullies are fittingly punished."
And I honestly mean it, and I still do believe that what I said could be a good solution. I was trying to have an actual discussion about whether our current Constitution really, truly works for cases of bullying, and whilst I will admit I didn't have a copy of the Constitution next to me, or open on my browser at all. I honestly think that we need to change it, at least in part, to make sure nothing like this (both the whole incident surround Ix, and the consequences of it and the whole mess (for I don't know a better way of putting it) that it has caused afterwards.

Then came my big mistake. I agreed with Alleb when they stated. "The image itself should probably be posted." We all know the image that is being talked about, and now coming back to it, I realize I should of said more than just "^". I should of said, as I believed it would have been understood at the time, that the proper consent would be given before the image was posted and, due to the fact I have never (and probably now will never) use Hangouts (or whatever it was), I did not realize said image would contain a picture of July and they're name, I believed it'd contain, much like on Discord some kind of profile picture and a username similar to the ones we use in the PPC. I was ignorant, and I should of said more than I did, I'll admit I'm guilty to that much.

A minute or two later I responded to Granz's post of:
"Do we include specific articles dealing with punishment in the Constitution, should we rewrite It? How specific do we get? How do we actually put it into practice? And seconding the posting of the image."
With:
"Yes, there should be articles in the Constitution about the punishment, so that those who think they'll be able to get away with bullying others will know exactly what will happen to them in turn."
With regards to my previous post saying about redoing the Constitution. I'll admit, reading that back I sound like a bit of a dick, it could come across as a bit hard (I generally am towards bullies, for reasons I mention later), but once again this was me trying to have a discussion about redoing the Constitution, this wasn't aimed towards anyone specifically, it was about honestly believing (at that time) that parts of the Constitution are flawed and need to be changed to help better prevent and punish bullies in the community. I then also follow up with
"We need to take a hard fast stance on bullies or else we might as well not take a stance at all."

Granz then asked a couple of questions that I didn't (and still don't) have a proper answer to. As far as I was aware, for this part of the conversation we were having a discussion about potentially redoing the Constitution itself, and whether that would actually work. I respond with my reasons for my stance on bullying.
"I was bullied for 11 years of my life because my teachers thought the best thing to do when an act of bullying was reported was to gather the two parties in a room and tell the bullies to, and I quote "Not do that again." And then send us on our ways." I'll admit, I'm not the most comfortable to post this on the internet at large, but I think it needs to be said to understand where I come from with regards to bullies (And for those who are interested, I'm currently 22, so yes, that is half my life I've been bullied. But once again, this (to me) merely justifies my stance towards bullies and basically nothing else).

In response to Khryssty's very fair questions of "What worries me is the degree of waffling this has revealed in the community. Will I really be safe here?"
I responded with: "You'll be safe, that is one thing I would always promise to uphold (and always do)" And it's true that I try and do that, and that I try and be firm but fair when I am called upon to settle disputes in the other corners of the internet that I hang out in, however rarely it happens these days. I realize that this could be read as "I want to rule the board/PPC with an iron fist." I don't, far from it. I am just saying that I try and make sure everyone feels safe whenever I can.

I make a couple of little comments before mentioning "Yeah, and also some people don't know about certain situations because they simply weren't there for them. So how can they comment on it if they don't know about it?" In response to (for me) the fact that in Ix's leaving post (I mean no offense here) I felt like they were blaming everyone in the PPC for either taking part in, or not standing by her during the three incidents that she had mentioned, I was trying to counter-claim by saying that, if one is not there, how can they be blamed for something, unless it explicitly happens because they are not there. I then continue on this tangent with "Yes you can read up on it after it has happened, but that doesn't help if a decision is needed then and there." before realizing it was indeed a tangent and deciding to shelve it away for later.

I make some comment about needing groundwork before we are able to continue, in which I was talking about if we were to redo things to do with how we handle bullying, nothing more or less. Then I make my other point that I think still applies (and shows that even on 5 hours sleep and with some stressful things happening earlier in the day I can still make up intelligent comments).

"We need to see past oldbie, middlebie, whatever. Just because they've been around a while doesn't mean they can't be held responsible for what they've done. If hS did something really rude and wrong I'd want him to be held accountable for it (for example)."

hS was just an example, it wasn't meant to be anything related to Scape's comments, it was merely because hS was the oldest-bie I could think of whose name (or shortened version thereof) I could spell relatively quickly. But it is a good point, sure respect your elders, but also remember that elders aren't always right, and that just because you've been here longer than someone else doesn't make you more right, or more in the right than someone who hasn't been here as long. I mean look at me, I count as an oldbie (somehow), and yet in some ways still feel like I should be treated as more of a middlebie (and even newbie in some cases) than an oldbie. But that's just me I guess.


It was at this point I needed to go off to my lecture (Yay, deriving the Black Scholes formula). I then returned somewhere around 6:20pm (ish) and kinda lurked on Discord (as well as reading what had been said in my absence) by which point it'd mostly died down.

So yeah, that's my side of things (in one giant post that I feel really sorry for anyone who has just read through it all. I'm aware the grammar is probably atrocious, I'm sorry). I'm not going to try and say I was definitely in the right, or definitely in the wrong. For the most part I was trying to have a discussion about how to better the PPC and the Constitution to prepare against something like this happening again.

If that is wrong, ban me, but I refuse to just accept being nominated for a ban because I felt that this had pointed some glaring holes in our community that NEED to be fixed and thought I would say something about it. And whilst I am strongly tempted to nominate Desdendelle for a ban as well, I refuse to, partially because I feel like falling to that level is inherently wrong, and SHOULD NOT BE DONE. And also because I recognize his point of view, and likewise July's POV, I may not respect it, I may not like it, but I will defend to the death their right to say it.

Storme Hawk
Who would have posted this in half the time if their 'o' key worked more than half the time.

I have an interlude ready for beta reading and one more in the works, and I've been working on a new mission on and off for about three months now, along with collabs with at least two other people. With luck I should be able to have the interludes at the minimum posted this month, but no promises.

Actually, if you want to beta-read the interludes, I can send 'em to you via PM. I only have one beta so far for them and I guess another can't hurt, can it? ;)

Should a ban be issued against Tomash, I suggest that any previous cases involving harassment or the revelation of private information of any PPC members be re-examined and judged according to the new system it appears would rise from this thread.

It's a bit about how Agent Peregrin fell into HQ inspired by a writing prompt in the Discord about two months back. It's stalled on account of a combination of writer's block and massive piles of real-life stuff. It might get finished by the end of the year at the rate things are going. Or it might not.

No missions at the moment because I haven't gone looking for a badfic recently, and because I recently decided my self-insert would suck as an agent, so I've re-parntered Peregrin and am still trying to get the hang of the semi-now agent pair.

Here's what I did wrong:

I participated in what has been deemed a witch-hunt. I helped direct the witch-hunt (see VM's post). This was wrong.

I didn't stand up, didn't speak, when July was doxxed. This was wrong.

I didn't try to calm tempers; I inflamed them, and was inflamed myself. This was wrong.

I have a few words in my defense, but they don't absolve me. Namely, I've chatted with July before, and I've seen the info in the screenshot before. Thus, when I saw the screenshot, I didn't think, "July has been doxxed." Doesn't excuse me--heck, it's more evidence that I wasn't thinking things through--but for me, at least, it wasn't new info. "I didn't really think about it" isn't exactly an excuse, though.

I was also worried about Ixi at the time, but that's no excuse, either. In fact, this worry should have made me more sensitive to others being wronged. But it didn't. I was an idiot.

Listen. I love this community. I spend a lot of my time here; I have a lot of friends here. I don't want to be banned. But what I did was wrong. I don't think July deserves this. July certainly didn't deserve to have any info posted--that goes without saying. We should all step back and calm down.

So... yeah. I've got to say, I don't think I deserve a ban. I was wrong, I did wrong, but I didn't have malicious intent. I thought that there were grievances to be addressed. So I'm going to ask that I not be banned--but that decision lies entirely with the community.

I'm going to step back for a few days. I'll be available for PM and Hangouts, but I won't be on the Board or in the main Discord chat. I'll let you all come to an agreement.

One last thing. Um, I know most of you aren't Christians, but Proverbs 15 sort of slapped me in the face. It's what I should have been doing this whole time, but didn't. It's worth a read.

-Alleb

Glad to know there's not anything else I've done wrong

I believe that's what I was referring to. You're right, since then you have conducted yourself well, but yeah. Don't do that please.

Is there anything other than posting that screenshot that you believe I should not have done? I believe that, aside from that massive and completely unacceptable screwup, I've been acting rather reasonably. Have I missed something?

(Email clickable if you want to move the indictment off of the Board)

Well, firstly, Tomash. I cannot myself make a judgement on whether what he did was illegal or not, but it was, in my opinion, a bad idea at the very least, and immoral and malicious at the very worst, although I do not think it goes that far. As he has resigned, I say ban him for a period no shorter than two weeks, but no longer than two months. This will give him long enough to think on his actions without being overly harsh.

As to myself, if I am banned, I will make no argument against it. I do not particularly wish to be, but seeing as yesterday, I made decisions out of fear and anger and, even if I did think revealing July's name and face were going too far, I did not speak out against it at the time. I do not know if I can be trusted without some form of punishment.

However, as to everybody else, I know some were not on for the entire thing. Aegis, especially, I believe was mostly there to notify us that Ix was alive. Furthermore, those who were there for the majority of the discussion were attempting to steer it into an actual discussion, not a witch-hunt, and several advocated at least taking this to the Board. And here is when I make a point about mass bans. The thing about Discord is, it's ridiculously easy to make a server. I made one in about a minute. Should we decide to invoke a mass ban, it would take me about ten to send off invites to everybody who has been banned, essentially splitting the PPC in two. I might not even use the dang thing, but my point is, you wouldn't really be punishing anybody, especially given that all it takes is a third person to put two people back in contact, creating an underground network that means that nobody is banned, ever. Such things only work when you have one or two toxic people who the group collectively agrees to remove from themselves and not speak to. Attempting this method would undermine the implementation of such systems in the future.

As per currently ongoing discussions in the Discord, I also nominate Aegis, Delta Juliette, and/or Maslab

I nominate GMA and Storme Hawk to the positions rendered vacant by yourself and Ix

Who here is currently working on a mission?

I feel that the sooner we get back to what our community is all about, the sooner things can return to ordinary non-drama. In this regard, a report would ease my nerves greatly.

I have made an extremely glaring oversight and serious mistake in posting that screenshot. I again deeply apologize for what I have done.

In the discussion about that, it has become clear that the PPC does not trust my judgment or my ability to hold power because of my rash action yesterday. I would only like to say that I do not believe that my extremely unacceptable actions to be illegal.

This, however, leaves us with a lack of moderators that are active during the evenings in the United States (since Iximaz has also resigned and Cat-on-the-Keyboard is not very active). Would someone be so kind as to nominate my replacement?

Though it does come to me after the fact that some of my language may have been too strong, and given that I am not certain, I retract the part of my comment regarding the mentioning it as illegal. I cannot confirm or deny if that raises to that level. So for that I apologize.

That being said, it was still a blatant violation of our rules. And the punishment is still warranted.

I was relaying Iximaz's perceptions of the community and her position within it. I mentioned hS because I believed that was a particularly interesting example of how Iximaz felt about us.

I can't comment on whether her perceptions are accurate. I hope they aren't.

I don't think hS did anything malicious in that situation, and any change in the collective opinion that (might have) happened after he first said something isn't his fault. Why would it be?

I'd also like to make it clear that I don't think anyone in the PPC set out to intentionally ignore Iximaz or downplay her concerns. If that happened, it was a collective failing that no one can be personally held responsible for.

There are a couple of people I think action needs to be taken against.

First, Khryssty said (paraphrased) "It's okay to dox someone if they're a bully". That isn't on.

I think I also saw Granz expressing similar views.

Then there was Scapegrace's little rant about hS. That was just complete disrespect for someone who wasn't there to answer, and who has in my experience always been calm and patient, listening to everyone's versions of events before making a call. I see that Scape and hS have talked about that, though.

Then I saw Des say "I don't think accusing July of bullying is right." And, uh, that isn't okay either. That's basically saying that July is somehow above the rules against bullying. I'm sure Des didn't mean it that way, but man. That alongside Des's lofty, dismissive tone and words (towards Aegis especially) have caused me to lose the respect I had for him.

Soooo... I wouldn't be averse to action being taken against the individuals named above, in addition to Tomash.

Ok, so. I know I have no power over any of you but I would like to respectfully request that July not be mentioned again in this conversation. This conversation was not meant to be about July. It was meant to be about fixing problems, not crusading.

Frankly, I'm ashamed of a lot of you, Tomash and Des especially. While I understand both of your points, the way you handled everything was frankly, unacceptable.

I joined this community for good writing and the humor. There was a lot of that then. Now that I'm back, it's been chaos and if we can't get it together, I don't know how much more of good writing and humor will be left.

I'm considering leaving.
If I do, I won't be looking back.