[Dezark]

So I'm just going to say this out right, I accept what GMs have put on that; and ultimately it their decision for it, and I can understand the general frustration on the sides of it for the sudden ban drops and the following of the same given things. This post is really just my own genuine opinion and I hold no means honestly toward any of the GMs, players or otherwise with this; this is something I'd prefer to say and let it be there, so that others can add on, address and show their own opinions.

To me, at least on this, I accept whatever opinions others have and I accept if the viewings might not be agreed with or anything else with that, please feel free to disagree with anything and say what you want; the only thing I'll ask is whatever said in response to this, to the GMs, to your fellow players; please keep it civil with whatever said. We all have our thoughts, and processes that we're taken to with it.


So I'm just going to address the general one off the top cause I've heard and already read a majority of people grief to it and how they feel with it. Regarding the private server for IC groups as mentioned, I can understand 100% for GMs why this can give issue with this, cause I know people like to vent their frustrations, anger, or otherwise following these. Balthie post showed this and how people were in response, and the general responses; even those who were apart of that were willing to step up and give their honest thoughts following that. For the regard of not bringing certain people into the server due to their IC power in it, I do want to just state and ask the honest matter if anything was asked on a OOC matter to them if they wanted to join it, yes it questionable and a regard on why one group was left out, but I do feel honestly there is ALOT of servers people are in, be it old or new, that are used for discussion, venting or otherwise about other players OOCly, Meiaquar especially. I've listened to, talked with and been on both ends of that since the beginning of Korvara when the situation with Blade happened, cause I honestly played a part as a whole on this.


On the matter of information not being shared due to this, or things regarding a nation being spoken OOCly, this is something that followed constantly as I've said, it'll happen in DM groups, in Voice Chats, in private servers, you name it and they've been there. We've all experienced this over the years, same with GMs both before and after they've come to this. My person opinions on this there needs to be some sort of check up at the very least regarding what players do. I know we are all teenagers, adults or old (like kira) and should know better on this, but even adults can forget things or be stubborn on this. So I'm asking for GMs on consideration (and you can of course give your thoughts if this can or can't work) to have something to just check in with the higher up channels, set up a day of some kind and just check in and see what happened; if anything that went down, make sure everyone knows; if not remind them to speak with the others and keep people up to date. Cause time zones exist, life exists, SL2 by no means is priority for people and it shouldn't be on that.


This one is a more minor part that I just want to ask, and this is free to ignore to be honest by all groups if you wish, in regard to the private servers as mentioned with the GMs, with the private servers as a whole for IC groups, would you like us to pass a invite to you so that you can keep watch on things for that or anything else of the sort? I know some groups exist in the area of certain nations (Astral in Geladyne, Yakuza in Meiaquar, Fairview with Meiaquar, etc.) so that it can be passed along to keep the appropriate leaders and a GM of whomever is free for it at the time; even if they decline at the time. (As said this is more minor and welcome to be ignored, I just want to know as being apart of certain groups or future groups to come; I'd like to just confirm any following especially if something is apart of a nation area on that.)


Moving onward, the regard of the Metagaming, this is something I feel everyone agrees with on a honest matter. It something that shouldn't happen or be pushed, and for any that punished, I accept that it deserved to be honest, I've seen multiple cases of people using their OOC dislike to someone as a reason to openly hate characters at the start of their existence, or using it against someone for how they are OOCly as a hold against them ICly, or for something they did at the time OOCly or didn't do, the list goes on. There no reason for this, and my main wish to this is to ask what comes to the point that there is OOC agenda to kick out someone from a position of power vs what is drove toward ICly because of disapproval to what your fellow leader, partner, etc. agrees to. Typically so I understand the following to it on that, but I do know as well with how the system is set up specifically for Korvara, that if someone wishes to overthrow another, they have to give genuine IC following on this matter that the GMs will read over, look at the logs supplied for it and give their general feeling for a "Yeah no, this is genuine OOC hate. Try again later." I don't know what followed, what people have done to go around this to try this regard more so, that why I accept GMs decision for it cause they're the one who hold the final call on that.


On the regard of Harassment, I've seen both sides do this since the beginning still in nearly every argument that follows, disagreement or otherwise, so I honestly agree with the GMs honestly need to punish on this personally, as someone who been in some regard of target for that in the past over the years, and I know that no one deserves this. I know how people can be emotional given that, and I know how others can be stubborn in return following it; and I know that there only so much that can be done on that matter. All I can ask on that is GMs give more response to people who do so, even if it without mentioning others, or just reminding them of the past times they've done so, obviously you can only warn someone so many times but I'd like to believe that there some warning even if just giving something of a "Don't do that, you know it gonna make it worse, don't fuel it."


On the regard of OOCly preventing people from doing their roles.. I can only add more on my request of the check up following that more so. I admit as someone who was in a higher up role for a time, there was issue on it where I grew frustrated and felt player X was not doing their position at the time, and I spoke with that player on it and voiced my disapproval to them not doing so, and gave my explanation at the time to the player what the Role needed, as they didn't feel or know what was honestly expected of them in return and needed to be given, and made sure that it was known as well to future players of that position.

That said, the regard of OOCly preventing someone from their role isn't something that should be done, but I also want to just encourage players who do have these roles, please reach out and speak with your fellow higher rank players on this, I've heard more than a few times where someone doesn't get on, or they do only for a short time to stop after and later get upset that they're not called for. People are forgetful and there are times where you need to reach out to them and let them know your still free and want to be apart of it if something happens on it. Every role has a purpose, be it guards, military, ambassadors, judges, leaders, etc. please do not fear to reach out often to others and just speak with them on it. Even if you have to bug them multiple times it better to confirm things even if the answer following is a no, it does wonders for everyone.



This all said and written, please understand I have no issue again with what the GMs decided ultimately, I didn't want to post on their forum specifically and cause issue, but I didn't want to just sit in my thoughts and let it simmer cause I want to be honest and show my support to both sides given this. No one deserves grief for what followed, or happened. GMs have to be what they feel is best for these and even with my own disagreement with how things might of followed, I still support and will continue to work with GMs, cause I know they will do the same in return and show the same respect we hold to them following this. This is another moment in the cogs of SL2 that will grow from.

So my final say, to the GMs of SL2, thank you for being diligent even when things are given response, thank you for working hard and doing what you can to keep SL2 stable in it own way on that, I understand that not everything you do will be accepted, and no matter what disagreement we might have; or what might follow or otherwise. Please focus on your personal health as much as you do on SL2, you are all wonderful people in the end and I know more than a few have been hit with stress, please don't be afraid to step away and just bap the players with a newspaper to bug someone else. Thank you for being amazing.

To those who were banned for what followed, I understand the frustration, anger, disappointment, sadness, anxiety, anything that you might feel. Please know your always welcome to talk in DMs if you need to vent and just have someone to distract what happening, take a small break from it for whatever long, distract yourself, kick ass in a game you haven't played in forever, you don't have to feel stressed or worried, things will still be here for you after your able to return. And there will always be a community willing to welcome you back at the end of the day. 

Thank you all for your time reading this, or even skimming it, please have a wonderful day, afternoon or night where you are, and one final thing to everyone..

Your all cute and amazing people, thank you for playing SL2 and giving wonderful interactions.

[noblekame]

Too long, still read, des cute. That's all.

[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.

[Mewni]

I wish to do better, and be told how to do so.

Even if it's in private.

There is quite a few people that we had our relationship start with the wrong foot, but once talked it out, became fast friends, some, I don't leave their side on a daily basis, and we couldn't even look at each-others face before.

[Shadbase]

Though I cannot comment on the immediate matter (because I'm not involved and don't have any information beyond what's available to the forums) and I could potentially just be rambling my entire post, I can say that since I ever started playing so long ago, in the baby days of the game... the GMs are, and always have been, king of needless paranoia.

Bans, for the most part, have always looked outright random and with very little explanation for anybody that has been banned, and even less for anybody who just sees the ban go on over OOC. There's also been a problem with little warning given to people who are breaking the rules, or doing something that they probably shouldn't. I've been lucky to have kind words when I have messed up more recently, but the outright fear of basically not being communicated with pre-Discord SL2 is still strong in my blood.
I'm mortified by the idea that I'm messing something up, and just out of the blue I'll get banned because the GMs are "collecting evidence" instead of just saying something is wrong here, and then collecting evidence when it's been shown a warning isn't cutting it. Whenever Rai plays one of my character's partners and says something a little risqué, I get an immediate panic attack that we're going to be banned - and I feel that for every person who does it in front of me too, because there's always just such little warning that anything is being noticed, or even that it'll come back on someone.

I feel a small, constant fear of every GM, no matter if I've talked to them and know them a bit. That people and them are just hoarding the shit I did when I was an actual 13-15 year old to hold over my head even now that I'm 23. (And this isn't conjecture, I've been told people in some positions of power (though not necessarily GMs) still hold some things over my head, hence why the anxiety.) This shouldn't have to be the case, especially now with new GMs that're active with the community. But this still exists for both I and quite the bit of others because the communication is just non-existent - between the GMs and players, and between themselves.
And that's existed for a long time, mind you - way back when, I asked a GM about a jokey alias I wasn't sure about, and got a 'sure, go ahead'. I did so, and within 15 minutes of existing, another GM just shadow changed my alias because they didn't agree. It's kind-of a microcosm of problem out of lack of communication that still persists to this day; if one GM says one thing, that doesn't mean that another won't entirely disagree because they don't know it's already been given an okay. The only time that this isn't a problem is when that person has made an application that is visually available to all GMs to look at on the forums, but a simple "can I do X" or "is X okay in Y situation" isn't something you're going to make a whole-ass thread for. ModMail is helping a bit with this, but ModMail isn't going to work for people who may need a bit of discussion.

This fear also happens even much more when they make a decision that wasn't exactly sound - there's an overwhelming horror of making any criticism because of immediate reaction from not even the GMs sometimes, but the players too. (And I'm not thinking about the current situation in this regard, more-so about the time a GM was upset over the term "K.O." being used ICly because it's "too modern", despite the contrary.)
The GMs are people, capable of mistakes, and aren't being paid - they're volunteers. But the GMs shouldn't be the only people that'll be shown respect if things go awry. People immediately saying that the GMs are being "harassed unreasonably" because people have criticism of any situation is a very gross thing that I've noticed ever since the Discord era came to be. The players aren't immune to mistakes and criticism, and neither are the Eventmins, GMs, or even Dev. The difference is that criticism needs to be discussed peacefully, which I know when things get heated can be hard, but to villainize all criticism because it exists? It's not healthy for anybody. And it does happen, I've seen it in both Discords we have before, both recently and non-recently. It's probably fair to say a lot of people know I can be stubborn and passionate about the things I believe in, like, or do, and come off as rude as well - but at the very least, I try not to get like that in any public place if I can help it, and I try not to hold it against the people that caught me like that, because more often than not it's not even their fault, it's just how my brain barely functions. You just have to find a method that works for calming down. I just turn on something to watch for a few minutes, process, then come back.

On the topic of the more private SL2 Discords since it's been a more prevalent plot point for the recent problems though, I just want to say: they're not a bad thing. Bad comes from people, and not from entire servers. It's come up publicly already so I guess I can say, but; I'm in the Hearth server. There's a ton of very lovely people in there that never cause trouble, but are there because it's a moderately public space with a bunch of people. Hell, it's called the Hearth because it was the server for the G6 guild, but since it's not around it's a hang-out spot. I'm also in a ton of other SL2-based Discord servers, and all of them are moderately peaceful when it comes to this stuff. But, since having a GM loosely lurking the entire server can be rightfully uncomfortable for a lot of people - hence why there's not always a GM in these servers - the responsibility comes to the players themselves, and the owner of the server if they know it. I'm pretty sure that Egg had no involvement in either times the Hearth was used, outside of trying to mediate and calm people down when things got heated, he's a sweetpea who wants the best for people. 

In summary of my barely-medicated ass's ranting:
As a whole, we really - as a community with no roles or authority preceding that - need to work on our communication hard. Roleplaying games are a game of cooperation, not a game of competition. Just reaching out to someone and saying "hey so, we're doing..." or "hey, we have a problem with..." can mean a lot to people. Even if I don't think someone'll care or they don't really have a say in it, I at least try to send them something if they're involved to a degree.
All not communicating does is lead to hardship, panic, and a sour taste in someone's mouth about things for long periods of time. Not like I'm immune to small grudges, either, but I don't let it paint my entire view of someone if there's a chance they've just made a mistake, or not thought very clearly, or even if they're just a very young person who doesn't have a wink of what's going on, or how that could hurt someone. I've been on the receiving end of this recently from people I thought knew better, and it'd be lovely to never have to have a panic attack that loses me sleep on a bunch of people who're just trying to help again - or have someone else be victim of that too.

Dezark and Frozen have had wonderful solution ideas, but I only wanted to throw my two cents in as someone who's had to hear of, deal, and suffer these types of panic attack-riddled problems and confrontations before.
You really don't have to name names or anything in your transparency (because it's entirely understandable that you wouldn't want to name names in harassment cases and etc.), but you can stand to be transparent in every other way - and that goes for GMs as well as players. It builds trust between you and your fellow players, and it's a trust that SL2 has never really been able to have, but desperately needs.

[Kyratio]

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.

I'll be honest, after everything that happened before (I'm sure at least some of you know what I'm talking about), I felt rather angry towards a lot of the community, admins and players alike. If my somewhat passive aggressive posts on Balthie's thread or my lack of existence up until recently hasn't shown that, well, yeah! I had pretty much decided that SL2 as a community was terrible and I didn't want to give it a chance again. 

With Balthie's post about the community, I got a little sprout of hope, but amidst it all there were still clear signs that spoke to me that the issue was still present as amidst the post, there was still targeting, there was still lack of realization and irony even from my point of view. So, I still kept my distance but started paying attention to the community again. With the recent happenings, I won't lie, seeing Croakie banned for basically every single thing I felt they did to me, made me relieved. No, I made no complaint to the admins as they didn't seem to show any concern or thought towards me or the others who felt the same way back when it was all happening. I posted the logs and everything in the past if you don't believe me. 

The reason I decided to speak up finally though is because in all honesty, Frost, I have a lot of issues with things that you've said about me to others in DMs, but, I agree with this post, as well as many of the things you're saying and I want to try and speak my mind on the matter in a honest but respectful way. I'm gonna try my best to do that. 

So, in my opinion, this problem as a whole has been happening for- well, a long time. Almost every ban is handled this exact same way, everyone knows this, and if you don't see it, that's because most people who are banned aren't usually involved largely within a big group like those who were banned this time. Or, if they are, they aren't loud, or important enough to the community for people to make a fuss over. I'm not saying all bans are wrong or right, or that this ban is wrong or right, as just like with every ban, I have no idea what actually caused it. It's expected for the player who is banned to know what they did was wrong and to be able to see the issue in their ways without any explanation. This is to try and force people to show restraint and regret for their actions. To prove they won't do it again. On paper, this makes sense. 

However, this also creates a large gap between the players and the admins, a sense of distrust, paranoia, and even just the overall feeling of, "I feel like I've done absolutely nothing wrong, but I made someone mad on accident recently... Am I going to get banned?". In a way, it's relatable to how many people feel when they see a police car. Up until they see it, or until they experience it, they're gleefully unaware. Yet, then they see someone get arrested, or they see a police car, or they hear about someone doing something similar to what they've done on the news. Suddenly, they're paranoid, they worry about every little thing they do, they feel like they have to tip toe around everything. Accidentally going 1 mph over the speed limit when you heard a friend got pulled over for speeding recently? Paranoia. Maybe that's not everyone, but I feel confident in saying that it's a pretty accurate feeling of the community right now.

However, on the opposite ends of things, I constantly see players talking bad about admins and their decisions even when they give good reason, even when they had absolutely every single reason in the book to make such a decision, simply because it wasn't a popular decision. So, even when the admins are transparent, they are getting flak. And yes, I've been on both ends of this, ultimately I have no room to talk, but I still plan to talk because maybe it'll get through to someone. Or help in some way to give perspective.

In the end, the only thing that can be done is for everyone to make a conscious effort in doing better. If the admins continue to treat and handle things as they are, it will lead to more and more events like this until it blows up in their face yet again, or, in the opposite effect, leads to too many people quitting out of frustration or distrust. 

In turn, if the community beyond the admins continue to do as they have, well, how can they ask the admins to be better? They're causing the same issues if not more. Be inclusive of people. Don't take things to heart. Don't go after people based on rumors or your personal feelings. Don't exclude people for these reasons either. Don't make exclusive groups where the main topic is SL2 and expect people to not get angry when you are using it to talk about people behind their backs or hide events happening. It's not about if their character should care about it, it's about if they decide to get involved. Don't metagame. Don't spread rumors. Don't spread hate. Treat people how you want to be treated.

Maybe things can get better with time. I hope everyone has a good day and feels better. Especially those who were banned. I know this has been stressful for you all.

[Mother]

English isn't my native language so please do keep that in mind as I add my little grain of salt to the whole thing.

As multiple people said above, I think that there is a clear lack of communication. And that at multiple levels.

Players between players: We are all... Peculiars in our own ways. And despite what people say, no matter what, IC and OOC are bleeding in each other all the time. One way to deal with that in TTrpg is "debrief" sessions at the end of a game session, that allow player to get out and manage a bit better their feeling. We clearly lack any of this kind of thing, separating players and characters can become such a big trouble over time that some people end-up confusing the two a lot. And clearly this is the main reason for most of the player to player toxicity, with the exception of anything linked to competition. This is leading to wild assumption over others and I'm pretty sure everyone, including me, here is guilty of that. Some took the thing a step above and started acting actively to diffame others still, which is yet again another problem, but coming from the same origin.

Admins toward players: I get it, you want to protect the people that complain, you want to not have your decisions contested and probably a lot of reason that made you really secretive about ban and stuff like that. I think the intention is good but the result is catastrophic. You are not protecting anyone, instead you are creating a paranoïa climate where people don't understand why and when bans and other punishement occur. You can do a bad thing, get banned a few days later, or a week later, or several months later. Since there is almost no communication around it, most people never understand what is happening and it almost always feel unfair. The only ban I saw people legit not yelling at was Hated. All the other bans where contested by some people simply because they didn't know. And the reasons being given are often short, without any call and not helping at all.

Players toward Admins: And this is maybe the most problematic one. Talking to admin isn't easy, due to the climate I talked above where you feel like the more wave you do the best chance you have to get ban for something you won't even understand. But we also have no way to express our disagreement, contest, or do anything to basically let out our frustration toward admins. Just like we lack any form of debrief sessions with players, it's even worst with admin.
So it isn't a big surprise that thing like the badmouthing of admins happens so often. People don't understand the decisions, can't really get any info on it outside of rumours, can't vent anywhere really official nor see things changed, nor even have their plea heard in fact. So yeah, what they do? They vent in private servers and stop trusting you. I'm pretty sure that anyone involved with admins on this game has ended-up doubting at least a part of the team of not being one way or another corrupt or not profesionnal. And don't get angry at me, I'm just voicing what I think could be true. (You see I'm even half-expecting to get banned just for voicing that).


So yeah. Better communication and transparency won't endanger anyone. Rather it would make things far better.

So I pointed a lot of problems, but what of the solutions?

Players between players: Create a group of people actually able and trained (as much as you can) to mediating solutions. No admin here that crush one side or another or tell both to shut-up. Just a group of friendly people that came in and make sure the discussion is polite, civilised, that both party say each what they are unhappy about and what solution can be put in place that makes both sides happy. And no question here of any kind of punishement.

Admins toward players: Clear and simple communication around investigation and bans. In fact I'm really surprised of how SL2 work, I've been admin and moderator on many places and never I saw such a high degree of secret. Instead post a simple message when an investigation is happening, calling anyone that want to testimony to come. Update the statu of such thing while you progress and finally convoke the accused (and the accusator if they want) to announce the debate in a place where everyone can see it happens. Then you tell them what has been decided and why and add an annouce that stay on regarding the decision. As much as I'm aware that's how prosecution is done in most countries and for a reason. At least I can tell that communicating better with the player base is always a positive thing regarding bans.

Players toward Admins: To be fair, that's the most difficult one. I have no clue how to help that. I believe that making the two above and reducing the overall violence of the process and the community, or toxicity, call it as you want, is going to help that. Then I would well. Suggest that a group of people was created to at least take in the complain of players toward admins. People that aren't friend with the current admins and so are clear of conflict of interest would be great. Because as far as I know the three major complains I heard of are:
- Admins are unable to manage conflict of interests and prefer some people over others.
- Admins are just not here, some admins going missing for prolonged periods of times and staying admins anyway.
- Admins are a nice group of friend that cover each other rear and will never admit if one of them is wrong.
I'm not saying that such is the truth, just some stuff you hear really often about admins. (In reality despite myself venting, I know that the chances that the admins are really actively being bad persons are... Really low). However making a group of admin for admin create the question of who watch the admin of admin. So yes, this system is clearly limited, I believe that our solution reside rather in the better communication between admins and players and player toward players.


Finaly, as this is still a talk about the recent bans here are my thoughts:

Are the bans making sense in the current context of bans and punishements are handled? Yes they do.

Is this a good thing? God no.

Let me explain. I believe from what I heard that the current people banned are for similar reason the ban of the Don happened. If anything. I feel like any of those bans, or any punition of any kind since a while solve nothing in the player base.
People are still angry, some still leave the game, some chose other solution like never trying anything serious anymore. But in the end did it stops people behaving like they behave? Well in case of permanent ban yes, in case of temporary nah.
The Don shouldn't have been banned, Croakie shouldn't be banned, none of them will change due to that. And if they do the change will come from fear rather than understanding. Rather they had problem with people and the bans never helped anything with that, rather it made them spitfull, unable to trust admins and they acted even worst after. Global behaviour will only get better if those problems get solved, if apologies are made on both side that understand what happened on the other and accept that they were in pain or anxious or stressed too and that's why sadly they hurt each others. It's probably a hot take but... Bad people are rare. People not understanding each others? People stressed? People anxious? People having trouble to express themselves? Yeah, there is a ton of them.
And we litteraly saw that, the Don ban lead to him turning paranoid and deciding he was going to reap his lore away or threat to lawsuit Dev. Was this a good outcome? Hell no. I'm sure some of you will simple say "It was him choosing to do so, the ban got nothing to do with that." and to those persons I can only answer that if they don't understand that a action trigger a reaction, I can't do much more.

The current solutions offered to our current problems are inadequate and we clearly need better way to do things. I don't know if my message will be heard or not, I don't care much either I must confess. I just hope that anyone answering this will make constructive comments and critics rather that unleashing any sort of short hater message like it often happen sadly. Yes I'm talking to you reading this message.

[WaifuApple]

The problem with this is that it's a tale as old as time within the community.

This tends to happen - the GMs give a vague overview of what they've determined you to have done, and then give you the statement of "we hope you take a week to reflect and improve", and I'll be honest, when things are secretive in the first place, taking this moral high ground is insulting. Especially when there has been times where logs that were poorly censored - enough to make it easy to tell who GMs were displaying stuff about specifically - to prove a point when the GMs needed to, which just feels like a case of double standards being shown. Those screenshots would come under the same blanket harassment case, and yet they were allowed out. It's this concerning, hazy back and forth between "we can't tell you much" and "we're going to release a whole manifesto" that makes it easy to feel, as a community, like we don't know how the GMs are going to treat us if they believe we're not up to standard.

Another thing is, as another person touched upon, "collecting evidence". I have on record that this has been months in the making - and yet also caught early. So I pose a question. After the GM mention of assuming everyone wanted healing, why was this a case of continuing to build up a case of a ban for months after you knew there was a problem brewing. Where were the attempts to help these players correct course if you saw it earlier? If you knew it was a problem months ago, why was it just... sat on? That is a deeply concerning thing for me to think about, really - because it sets a worrying precedent that in spite of a need for "healing" the team would rather build up evidence to take people down than engage in mediation. These investigations of months long are in themselves problematic - that's not early. It's really, really not.

I want to have faith in the team that guides us, and on a personal level am friends with some of you, but on a strictly communal level, I hope you can understand from what I'm presenting why there's an us versus them mentality in the first place for the community. It's a lack of proper communication, and the fact that these kind of "hunt" like investigations don't seem to come with attempts to mediate along the way.

I hope this can change, personally.

[Snake]

Transparency is king.

I think I've said enough in my brief post at the Unban Appeal (woops), but I don't see any problem with things of importance being put up to light. If anything, it humbled the exact people we could debunk from the conversation, and even put some to quit SL2 for a few only to return, no short of 'better people'.

A mass ban like that should've been better planned and thought about, because the lack of concrete response is kind of showing the opposite. Of course the community will raise a brow and expect answers.

Especially due to the accusations only being valid towards a single person, out of that four.

[Plunger]

For all of the people hammering on the GM team for not providing complete logs of the entire situation, I think it's also important to note that not a single one of the ban appeals really shows any kind of contrition. In fact, some of them even go as far as throwing other members of the community under the bus.

Using excuses such as:
-The GMs were in the Discord and should have put a stop to it. (Already covered in Balthie's previous post.)
-Another ground (Hearth) was doing the same or worse.

Tells me that they either still don't understand their behavior was wrong or worse, simply don't care. It makes me think the bans should be extended until they've at least proven they won't be participating in the same behavior that got them banned initially.

It's also concerning to see the amount of people who say they have no idea what's really happening because of a lack of evidence while simultaneously saying the banned users are innocent. You can't have it both ways.