[Frozen]

I'll throw my hat in here because I had initially a lot of grievances with the whole ordeal and had intentions of making a thread on my own, but a thread like this is absolutely well written and I think it's something we can use to get to a lot of betterment between the community as a whole. There are very obvious problems that need addressing and I think that this is definitely a good start with addressing them.

Of course, I'll begin with the main conundrum that sparked this thread from what I can figure. The four-person ban that a lot of people seem to be in disagreement with.

I won't speak on the guilt of each party because there's a lot of things I have and don't have that can affect my point of view on things in terms of evidence. As much as I want to, I don't think I have the right perspective to speak on whether these four deserve anything they've been dealt out. What I do have to speak on is how the process was carried out. From the post that was made in address to each of the ban appeals, it was explained that there was an investigation that took the duration of several months prior to these bans, though it seems the most recent issue that was raised is what brought up the ban to begin with. I think that if there was such an investigation, there should have been more word towards the guilty parties DURING or even AFTER the investigation if there was one proceeding at the time.

I understand if there was word towards the parties prior to the ban and during these last few months, but the concept of a ban was furthest from their mind. If there was a warning, I don't think there was an appropriate or sufficient warning. Besides that, it's apparent that each party for the most part is confused about the nature of their ban. It's my belief that with the point of these bans being self-reflection, it's important that to have the players realize the error of any of their ways they need to understand what they did wrong to begin with. The "blanket reason" that was posted along their bans left people reeling and more begrudged than reflective.

This has formed as a kind of status quo with the way bans are handled, where there's a long period of time after an initial infraction followed by months of investigation. I'm not sure when this initiated but I know it happened with folks like Mother and TCBlade, and it lead to the four that were banned a few days ago. I haven't investigated any other bans in detail so I can't speak on whether the same has happened to others or at least people who haven't done anything easily considered an offense, but I can at least say that if someone was investigating me I'd rather know that a GM is looking into me over those months. Ultimately, my point is I'd rather not need to ask a GM if I might need to tone anything down if I'm not showing signs of taking it down a notch, I'd like a GM to tell me so and that it COULD lead to a ban if it continues. It can lead to a lot of saved headaches.

Now since I mentioned my issues, I also want to support a possible solution.

Things like Dezark's suggestion are perfect for such a thing. If people are kept in the loop in what feels like an inevitable issue of people making plans and pulling up ideas in private spaces or voice chats, GMs wouldn't be put in such an awkward position where someone has issue with another making plans without them to begin with. I won't ask that GMs start policing players nor will I ask players to push everything through to GMs for any decision they make. I think that it has to be a mutual effort. An ESTABLISHED effort, especially. Make it a whole thing. As a leadership role, or maybe even guild leaders in the first place, it should be imperative to make sure GMs know about any major meeting that is held if we want to avoid exclusion. It'll also be very useful for keeping track of politics which I will admit as a former leadership character was very hard to keep track of without people ever actually telling me about so and so.

Leader 1 wants to meet with Leader 2 because they want to talk about establishing borders. Leader 2 has an ambassador that should be present for the meeting because they have been involved with communications between Leader 1 and 2's nations. Not that I'm asking for either leader to dm a GM about it, but we have rank chats for a reason. Ideally, this shouldn't be discussed in dm'd letters between the players alone. If there is one, it'd be posted in the rank chat so everyone in that leader's cabinet would see it. It's an idea, expansion of the original suggestion made by the OP. The example here is just one way I figure we could do with. I just want to say that not only is it possible, it's pretty handy for all those involved so that exclusion isn't done inadvertently (or otherwise). It may seem like one of those things that might feel awkward to try, but as long as every party either actively discusses things in channels GMs can see or mentions it to a GM after said discussion hopefully no one can be left unaware.

Now, in regards to this "status quo" I mentioned...
There's not much I can ask for in regards to this besides the obvious. If there is going to be a ban following an investigation, there has to be a lot more transparency between the GM team and the offenders. I understand the feelings that might be traded between each party, but that shouldn't be relevant to what I want to see which is there being ZERO room for complaint in this regard. It's something I don't think exists at the current moment. If something like this happens to a person and they have no idea? It gives me the idea that such an investigation can happen to me. Have I done something ban worthy that I haven't seen as ban worthy a few months ago?

It's a kind of paranoia that kind of meshes poorly with the current state of the community. There's always been an us versus them feeling present, whether between players and GMs or players and players. I believe there's always a chance to break through the mold and improve as a community let alone as a person... I think if people make genuine efforts and actually try any of the suggestions with an open mind there will be a noticeable change. In the end, I can say that at least one of the people who were given a ban genuinely needs the break anyhow because they've been caught in that same ever-present feeling the community gives, of frustration and wariness. There's plenty more to be said about a few things about SL2's player base on top of that. I always hear people mention that there's this or that problem with the community, but rarely do I see threads willing to put it into perspective and try to get to some work on it. Maybe this could be a wake-up call for us.

I'm always open for speaking to, as well. I think it's always worth putting your thoughts out in the open, though I should specify OPEN. It's easy to trip into the pitfall of talking about someone when it's not in a place they can reply, so if there's any intent of talking trash about anyone I want to try and keep it from me. Thank you in advance for considering my thoughts and concerns.