[Autumn]

I think the OP of this thread is correct, I have only ever seen the community more broken than this once, and those were during the days of characters like Airi, Seraphine, Dark Claw and when the Guards only had 5 people in it, 3 of each very inexperienced with PvP. I am going to go on a bit of a tangent here but I feel as though the context is necessary.

To summarize as best as I can, in the old days of SL2 many of the communities were not formed  together quite formally there were at best, a few skype groups where people were selectively fanned in based on trustworthiness and/or popularity, in those groups lots of gossip would occur. And sometimes that gossip would even be about the group's own members, behind their back, this usually caused a lot of hurt and I'd know it did. Because I was a part of these groups, I participated a lot in the exact same behaviors I see today from other certain groups. 

If you stepped out of line and said something against the group's interests, you were very likely to be ousted, ignored and sometimes even harassed until an argument broke out or that person left first, and when that happens you feel as though the world is against you, like no one in the community has your back, you feel separated. I still feel regretful towards someone I still speak to today, our own group said some nasty things about them, we made up eventually and we still talk, but not on the same real level as before.

Eventually those days came to pass, we all divided into our own little discord groups, some of us growing as individuals, and some of us not. Notably most of the friends I had in my old group would go on to become GM at one point or another, and they were pretty good at their jobs I have to say. Admittedly I have taken the longest to grow as an individual, I'm far from perfect but I strive to improve every day. (My main issue is talking balance I need to give it up lol)

My tangent about this is over now, I say all this because the harassment and behaviors I am witnessing in regards to all of these bans quite frankly, remind me of those days, those days were not good for the game. The community was at it's most broken state then, and it is now. Because of the harassment that goes in in private chats, because of the harassment that leaders can face when something doesn't go someone else's way. These conflicts are stupidly un-necessary and are almost always masked behind the guise of "It's just IC bro" when there are very clear cases it's not.

I do not think ill of these people either who were all banned, I talk quite often to a few of them, one of them is a friend of more than a decade at this point. Likewise I am very disappointed to hear about these bans, because I trust in the GMs to do their jobs because a majority of the ones handling these bans did move on from toxic behaviors to go on to become better people. I do not believe these bans come lightly and without evidence in doing so, and I do not believe they are weaponized against these people (or at least in most cases, nothing is impossible). Otherwise I would be banned too I believe. But trust me I do deserve at least a 3 day ban too for some comments to an old friend earlier this month, much of which has likely already been reported, I'm just waiting for it to happen.

In regards to GM transparency, most people already know my stance, so far this has been a very small backlash to a banwave I've seen, I fully believe that a majority of the people who were not permanently banned do regret their decisions and can work on themselves from this experience even further. For those who cannot and will not see the light of reason, who still think they have been wrongfully banned, I can't sympathize with that, but you're still my friends. I just don't like to partake in the us against them mentality anymore. I just wanna write characters I think are fun to play lol.

When it comes to not providing logs detailing why you may have been banned, I believe that a majority of the people who are banned do not request these maliciously, however the zero tolerance policy does not exist for these people, it exists so that people who are reporting these things do not feel left out without anyone there to help them ever again, so that they do not get hurt again by a retaliatory and angry individual. We had those days and they were not pretty, it caused a good few people to quit, one of my best friends, infact. Or they never will be able to play the game again without fear of someone who disliked them once being there.

The people who were banned and do not desire to change and grow as individuals, will never understand why the zero tolerance policy is the way it is. Time and time again they will be warned and banned, until they are gone for good.

Thank you for reading. I will be staying here on SL2, for years to come if it so allows me to, I hope to see you in the future, Anhita.

Edit: I should also note out, if light were to shine down upon the above potential issues, I would likely change some of my opinions.