[Anhita]

Alright, Heres hoping people dont end up hating me for what I am about to say, Or what-have-you. Maybe one day I'll return. And maybe this doesn't need to be said at all. Maybe some of you might recognize some of the words I say because I honestly thought you were right on the money with some things.

I've never seen such a broken community in my life.

The things I've seen over the past few months-- Which became more apparent during this war that I honestly dont think needed to happen the way it did and still dont. Even Im guilty of occasionally getting frustrated, stressed, or what-have you. I take things pretty seriously since this was one of the few creative outlets I, and many others have.

Some folk might think Im just writing this because my friends got banned and maybe you're right. 'Cause I do have friends, And some might look at them as the Scum of the earth-- That they deserved what they got, And maybe they did. But I cant know that because of the way the transparency system even works.

But I see them as a human being same as any of you. God forbid people have friends, I guess.

Maybe some of you might think I am doing this because I got warned recently for my outbursts. And well. I admit, They weren't all appropiate. Though I certainly dont do it out of a place of hatred. Maybe frustration, yes. But honestly I dont really hate many of you, even if you dislike me for the people Im associated with.

But theres a clear sickness. Maybe Im wrong and it'll go away with the recent ban wave. Maybe Im right and we'll live in Cyslodia. An actual fictional city where people just sell eachother out to the secret police for mistakes - . And damn the person who wasn't the first on the draw, Whether they were truly guilty of some heinous crime or not.

I've made my mistakes. And some people might consider that to be friendship- I just wanted to provide cool things for the community. And some people offered their hand in helping that happen. The one time we trusted others with our work, it got run into the ground. So admittedly my trust in others has been abit low. And my stress has only gotten higher and higher.

The current system talks about how it cares about people. And maybe it does care about some people. But only the ones who really speak up. It never really takes the feelings of others into account. It breeds paranoia, and hatred. Instead of working things out, We simply seek to get rid of the stains we personally have a problem with. Even Im not innocent of this. No one really is innocent of anything. They're just the first ones to speak about others, it feels like.

I used to think alot of the people of this community was cool. Maybe one day I'll return and enjoy myself again. Doing PvP, RPing with people Im close too, Doing cool things in events, Maybe even enjoying some of the intrigue that Korvara could have provided.

Most of all I kind of wish everyone saw eachother like how I used to see them. Instead all I see is people broken and at eachothers throats.

Here's hoping we can reach a point of healing. But thats up to the community to do. I dont envy the new GMs, or even Dev, because they have alot of work to do. And sometimes that work isn't taking the most straight forward and easy road. Theres no easy answer to the problems with this community. I suppose Ban-IP or whatever your verb is for it might do it for awhile, until a new victim comes into the concious of public opinion. Personally. My vote is to be the bridge between communities-- instead of the thing that divides them.

Happy trails. And heres hoping when I return, its not all a giant ashpile of hopes and dreams. Of adventures that never were or could have been. But I dont think the next leg of my journey through the internet is here, atleast.

[Shujin]

I think many people, genuinely attempt to do things that are fun for everyone. Not everyone, but I would say a majority of people somewhere just want to have fun with everyone else.

We are different kind of people. With different ideas of fun and obviously sometimes that clashes. Frustration comes from that and sometimes that frustration boils over and things are being said that mayhaps shouldn't have been said. This is however the best case scenario. People eventually calming down, maybe even apologizing and admit that things have been maybe said in the heat of the moment, or an act has happened due to a stressful situation that maybe could have played out better in a calmer setting.
I think this is fine.

I admit though that I too feel that many of the concerns you have stated, I have felt for many many years now. Espically the "First to speak up, wins!" thing about speaking up to admins, is extra true, cause even if we assume the Admins do what they can to find the truth, the narrative is ultimately directed by those very few people that speak up, allowing them to Weaponize the Admins in a way and can even fake evidence. Since there is Zero transparency between that and the people being accused, they suddenly have to fight a defense war against unseen threats. Stuff plucked out of context? Faked Evidence? Blown entirely out of proportion or even omiting their own shortcomings to paint themselves in a better light and justify it?
The accused doesn't see any of that, and need to grasp for air, as the one accuser who might have malicious intents sees the whole gameboard. This? Needs to change. The transparency system as it stands, or lack of it, makes weaponizing admins easy. I am not one who often speaks up about my own problems. Only if I feel a certain threshold has been crossed, which can take a while with me. But someone might be way quicker to the gun, cause who shoots first wins.
No matter how I look at it and see the well intentions behind the system, it is most certainly abusable.

I'd change it to a simple system where someone has concerns? they come to an admin and they sit together with that person and talk it out. I am almost certain 8/10 times things will be solved in a way better way. the other 2 cases just get banned, if they then continue to harass them after a genuine attempt to solve the issues, instead of using admins as weapons in the first place. You know? talk about stuff? Like adults. Which most of us are.

I have been very vocal about my own dislike of this community for a while. We have many good people. But we have some seriously bad apples, and I feel they abuse this system very hard as a vocal minority with extremely malicious intents.

Another thing, which I think is absurd, and thats coming from the Admin team...If there are things that happend like 3-4 or more months ago and nothing happend inbetween? let it slide man. There is no need to suddenly hit someone with a 3 month ban. Smaller bans usually serve as slaps on the wrist and as a way for people to see "Maybe I should be more careful.", just slapping them with the 3months out of nowhere, robs people of the learning expereince and any chances to 'do better'. If you go ghost hunting and undigging such old problems, all you do is add to the paranoia and fear in the community to even interact properly. Let a dead horse, and old grudge, be that. A dead horse. Stuff changes over time, there is no reason to play Gravedigger, just cause you absolutely need this "evidence" so you can punish them more severly.
I do not think that's healthy, it only makes sense to do when these things continuously happen for a long period of time, or as reference points. But to dig up the whole graveyard, just to hit someone with one big strike? Does not only feel disconnected from reality from everyone who sees it from outside, its also probably 80% irrelevant at that point, and if we want to grow as a community, holding onto old grudges is not going to help, its rather fostering people to load their gun and cultivate hatred. I do not think thats good. I think we should forster a setting where we can let bygones be bygones.
I know a tall order to ask. But thats one of the biggest problems this comminuty has. And current ways of handling things just emphasize this mindset.

That being said, I atleast held no ill feelings towards you Anhita, even though you might have thought so. Things happend, they weren't great. Was I frustrated? Hell yeah! Did I think you could have acted better too? Sure. But it was one hell of a shitshow and I do not blame you in the slightest for anything that happend. And I am sure you have similar feelings regarding the situation and me. Both made mistakes that came from stress. So let me atleast say it offically here, that I hold absolutely no ill feelings towards you, and I think its sad that you slowly come to similary jaded picture that I have from this community.

Cause trust, there is nothing I would like to be more wrong about, then this community being all just twofaced liars, betrayers and a bunch of assholes that care for litterally nothing other than themselves and their friend circle at the time. I really want to be wrong about that.

Admins being the Bridge between people, rather than the assassin sniper, sounds alot nicer. I know its not THAT easy. But it certainly can be done better than it currently is.

This has however been a thing thats been on and off going for many years. So I can probably atleast "comfort" you, in saying that when you return someday, it probably will be exactly the same as before and you can return to it for the better and the worse. taking a break from time to time, when you got exhausted from this and taking a step away, to come back in fresh and with a clear mind,is probably not a bad strategy for your own sanity.

[WaifuApple]

I'd like to stress that a lot of the critique here comes from a position of not understanding the situation, and no, not every situation should be solved by 'talking it out', nor does that usually go well. That just leads to added frustration on the part of any victim who has been beset by harassment or behaviour that should not be occuring. They report their concerns, and what comes next? They're made to sit down with the person who's been causing them issue. I'll be honest in saying it's somewhat ignorant to imagine that this will go over well. Most times it will not, and most times someone will come out of this upset. Breaking a rule should not be a matter of 'well, now you get to sit at a table and talk through your feelings', because the rules are the rules, for what they are. They shouldn't have been broken, and punishment should be expected if they are. Not negotiation.

The reason the ban waves of recent happened is because the community pushed for it. Because the community saw that unnamed people were being let off for harassment and the victims of it left to suffer with a 'okay, so maybe next time something will be done', and I'm here to tell you that, just like Dev discovered, this kind of leniency is tone deaf when it comes to people dealing with things they shouldn't have to deal with. With things that should be covered in the rules. With things that they'll have been told 'we'll handle this' and find it never really happened.

People wanted the justice that recently came upon the servers, and it's because they now know the names of who it was that there's some degree of backlash. This was a good idea to people until names followed. Now it's not, a day after the whole thing, because I suspect people just haven't processed that big names got big bans. I get it - it's hard to see that, and there will be many who were friends with X or Y who now don't know what to think.

But that's no reason to believe that this was wrong. The initial announcement mentioned that people would simply be told their actions were bad and that they wouldn't be tolerated in future. The mercy was there. The community made itself known and to blame the admins from here on out (or even the community itself, since it's reasonable to expect that dealing with the worst of this community for a good while without ever seeing solace is a slap on the face for those who were harassed) would be disingenuous.

[MegaBlues]

I've heard a bit from the side of some of the people who have been banned, and the term "harassment" seems to have been watered down. It can be anything from repeatedly telling people to kill themselves to saying one time that you don't like a character in a voice chat almost a year ago

It definitely reeks of personal bias, and the transparency issues make it even harder to trust the team (Which personally I don't anymore), but even if I think this latest situation was handled poorly it can be a path to a better future.

Though after this rule revision and promise to do better for the nth time, I expect problems to be brought up in a reasonable amount of time. No waiting three months to alert an admin and waiting another three months to contract whomever you're having a disagreement with. Even I personally was paranoid in wondering if I had accidentally slighted someone a year ago without knowing, or if I'd eat a ban over something I've forgotten or never did while being unable to defend myself.

The new rules should absolutely include a statute of limitations; a week to bring up a complaint to admins and another week for the admins to alert whoever is being accused. I really don't buy fearing retaliation when the team has the power to more harshly punish anyone engaging in it, and if no one can trust that disagreements will be handled fairly and openly, people will end up only speaking to their friends in private to avoid the risk of upsetting someone else.

[WaifuApple]

A statute of limitations on poor behaviour just proves problematic to those who are nervous, shy, or put off. It just forces added pressure to do this now or never be heard if someone's causing you serious issue.

I trust that ancient matters don't get reported months later, but enforcing a set time for when to stop accepting reports when rules have in fact been broken just seems set to allow people to slip through the cracks and to bring a new unnecessary pressure to the victim of any particular instance.

It's a slippery slope, especially when a rule broken a week ago was still a rule broken, and a rule that needed enforcing. It doesn't suddenly become not a rule break because you stalled the report a week.

[MegaBlues]

While I do feel for people who aren't comfortable making reports, I also feel for people not being told when they're doing something wrong and then getting punished once the person who has an issue finally explodes after bottling it up, or less kindly, people who might have an agenda and claiming someone did something unprovable a year ago.

And this latest happening has absolutely proved that you can be punished for petty, unprovable issues brought up months later, when most people would have forgotten what they've done (or don't remember and can't even make a case for themselves).

If you have an issue with what someone did, you can't expect them to change their behavior if they're not told. Not everyone getting banned is vile scum, sometimes there's just a misunderstanding or other minor friction that could be resolved in a few minutes.

[Bylamir]

I'm sure there's a lot of people who feel the same regarding the community. I like the vast majority of the community. Sure there are people I don't like but that's life typically. You can't force everyone to get along. Some people don't mix.

But it's absurd with just how much hostility there is behind closed doors. Inner circles bashing individuals they don't like. But because it's behind closed doors nothing can be done. And that hostility from behind closed doors can seep out. I've seen it quite a few times. Needless hostility in the OOC chats. Especially with the war, there are a few major offenders on that front.

But I'll be the first to admit I'm a coward. I hate speaking up. I've got thick enough skin to when I see something like the above I brush it off. And it feels like it never gets reported. To be quite honest, it feels like people are waiting with knives at the back waiting for the first semblance of someone they don't like messing up so they can bring it to the GMs.

I've had to step away and even make a secondary discord account (Okui for those wondering) just so I could play anonymously and enjoy the community without having to worry about anyone's dislike changing how they feel. And you know what? It was fun. It was amazing. I fucking loved meeting new people I otherwise never would've had the chance to meet. (Shoutout to Lance, Emblem and Katrin as well as many more! They were just the first three I thought about.)

I'm rambling a bit but the OOC can be just so tiring at points. The environment feels downright hostile. Also just a personal thing, I've seen quite a few usages of a certain slur towards disabled people with nothing done about it.

I agree with the main post. The current state of the community even with the bans still gives me that hostile vibe. I'm not going to touch on the bans, because to be frank that's none of my concern. My concern is how the OOC feels to me. I don't feel like I can hang out and post things in there. It feels business casual. Maybe I'm jaded because I saw a lot of hostility a while ago. I'm aware most of the community isn't like that.

But it only takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel.

What am I trying to say? I'll be fucked if I know. But honestly I like the community. But I don't like the feeling it gives. I'm not going to claim to have some magical solution that'll make everything better. I'm just going to say how I feel as a fellow member of the community. If you don't feel the same, that's absolutely fine. But I only hope you can understand my perspective in all of this.

Is this message a mess? Absolutely.

Am I going to post it anyway? Fuck yeah. 

I don't plan on leaving the community, but a short break is definitely in order. For now, I'm gonna lurk and respond to anything asked about my message.

Later Skaters

[Shujin]

While I agree with you appo, it's not that easy either. People with genuine problems coming up to talk with their "bully" is certainly not easy. But its a show of good faith from both sides. Will it always work? hell no. I know that.

But it well prevent some of those witchhunt cases and generally have a fairer way of solving things. Its really taxing to be targeted by the Admins over a "Truth" they heard from XY, and then fight a war against guilty until proven innocent, against claims you have no idea about. Even more so when they date so long back that you have no freaking idea anymore, and even if you were innocent?
good luck trying to prove something that long ago.

The current system is massively flawed and abuseable. I am sorry for those that genuinely try and use the system for justice, but it has become an outlet for people to use to let the Admins handle their battles in a really disgusting way. And no one feels comfortable like this anymore.

[Kameron8]

I admit though that I too feel that many of the concerns you have stated, I have felt for many many years now. Espically the "First to speak up, wins!" thing about speaking up to admins, is extra true, cause even if we assume the Admins do what they can to find the truth, the narrative is ultimately directed by those very few people that speak up, allowing them to Weaponize the Admins in a way and can even fake evidence. Since there is Zero transparency between that and the people being accused, they suddenly have to fight a defense war against unseen threats. Stuff plucked out of context? Faked Evidence? Blown entirely out of proportion or even omiting their own shortcomings to paint themselves in a better light and justify it?

The accused doesn't see any of that, and need to grasp for air, as the one accuser who might have malicious intents sees the whole gameboard. This? Needs to change. The transparency system as it stands, or lack of it, makes weaponizing admins easy. 

I share this concern, even if I don't agree with greenlighting every report made for public viewing.  Obviously retaliation is (and has been in the past) a pretty big problem.  However, if evidence takes the form of things like Discord screenshots, or copy and pasted SL2 logs, both are laughably easy to lie about and only Dev can verify one of those two things to begin with.

I am not implying this has happened, but I agree outright that it is not only possible, but trivial to weaponize admins if the accused is left fully in the dark.  And if it has not happened, it will eventually happen with the current system.

With regard to the original post, I hope to see you again in the future Anhita, and it was fun.

[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.