[General Battuta]

Also a big ****ing F in chat for Axem, our Bob Ross, our Steve Irwin, a guy who just loved FreeSpace so much and wanted to help other people love it too. And he was so nice, so Canadian, that he'd rather leave than honestly tell you how much he can't stand some of you.

Can't yall do triage? Axem's dead, you've got people bleeding out all over, the guy(s) responsible are over there. How is shooting yourselves going to help?

The whole discussion is just so dump. So much arguing over what? An not-apology for some lapsus and bs happening in PolDisc? I wish the staff members had spend the time arguing playing SR instead of stiring up that amount of drama. I don't think anybody just running away deserves any king of respect.

**** off. Axem's a saint.

EDIT by MP-Ryan to adjust Nightmare's quote after he kindly changed some wording at my request.

[Nightmare]

Yeah I'm sorry Axem, was mostly refering to the rest of the staff.

I just had enough of this.

E. clarified some wording

[karajorma]

Maybe I'm naive here but why not just, uh, remove them both? Take the IDF approach to collateral damage here?

Remember what I said about being too nice?

[BlackDove]

The whole point is that it's not about the PolDisc topic. This has been a theme for at least the last ten years, and this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. A latest in the series. The question is simply does the series continue, or not.

Interestingly enough, if things really are like this, I do really wonder what powers admins have to begin with, considering they do not seem to be able to affect change. I guess this whole fiasco highlights the organizational inefficiency of HLP to begin with.

Also, RIP Axem. Guy was probably the best of us.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

...

...

Thank you both for giving us a clearer update. I think I've heard enough for the time being, we all know where this is going.

[mjn.mixael]

Axem was easily one of the most positive forces in the community. Now he's gone so we can keep around someone who's ego is so large he wants to sue people on the internet.


(Go watch Letterkenny. It's excellent. And Canadian... Like our fallen hero)

[General Battuta]

Just from an absolutely cold-blooded utilitarian standpoint of what's good for FS modding, if you gave me two buttons, and one said Ban Axem and one said Ban Goober, and I had to push one or a hydraulic press would crush a little Shivan, I would not shoot myself, I would ban Goober.

And if you gave me two more buttons and one said Ban The E and one said Ban Sandwich, from the perspective of a FreeSpace modder, a rando who wants to get help doing things in FreeSpace Open, I would ban Sandwich in a heartbeat. My dude does CSS or something, E ran the entire SCP.

From a more human and partial perspective, this website is practically The E's life, he's been through so much **** and this place has been a constant for him. He doesn't deserve to be forced out in protest seppuku against an indifferent administration.

[General Battuta]

From my own human and partial perspective, I gave up on well-intentioned, earnest involvement with HLP's administration years (a decade?) ago, after Goober's breeding camp manifesto and his accusations that a woman was becoming emotional and refusing to answer his questions. Only when walked through the thread post by post did he realize that he had missed her response; he was the one who had failed to reply. Whether his emotions were to blame he did not say.

I feel there's maybe an analogy here.

So if you value an alternate universe 'Battuta stays nice and does not routinely ban himself for months at a time in order to curb his memes' I guess there's that to weigh, but it's sort of ephemeral compared to the actual community heroes dropping like flies here.

[BlackDove]

Sounds about right to me, but it does seem like two people are more equal than other people.

Sandwich was right. This is not a democracy, even at the admin level. Some admins are second class citizens too, it seems. Most of them even.

[Sandwich]

Last night, the actual de-admining was handled badly. I'm not going to into the details but plans had been discussed but were largely ignored.
This appears to have been Axem's last straw and he de-admined himself over it. I don't blame him as I almost followed him. The global moderators have also expressed severe frustration with how this entire fiasco has been handled and I'd bet money on them also leaving if Goober remains an admin.

For the record, this is the event I had been mentioning that went down last night. Kara does not want to go into the details; in all honesty, neither do I. However, it's still important for you all to know what happened. So for the sake of having an accurate public record of it, here is what Axem posted, in full, on the Global Moderators board:

I stand by what I said before, I don't think it is in HLP's best interests to have Goober as admin. Trying to get this whole overall issue resolved has been like pulling teeth and shouldn't be this hard. Why does it take 3 weeks to just keep coming back to the same conclusions over and over.

But you know what else? It's not in the best interests for HLP to have the rest of you either.

I'll admit to having off HLP discussions with a group of staff for the purposes of making sure Goober is held to account of his improprieties. I will also admit that I agreed with them that Goober should be removed. But the execution of events here is so amateurish and ham-fisted it boggles the mind at all of everyone's basic mental competencies.

In our discussions it was brought up that we would bring Sandwich into the loop with the seriousness with what was going on. Faced with this ultimatum, would things have just gotten pushed back again (likely the fear that caused this to happen) or accepted as the will of the staff? Good question, but it's pointless since it's obvious that ship has burned to the ground now.

But sure, let's get impatient and just de-admin Goober like that. Keep it a surprise and have zero actual plan afterwards. What on earth could possibly go wrong?

Well, apparently this! And you want people to trust your leadership now?

HLP doesn't deserve any of you. Given everything that has just occurred and my involvement, it would be inappropriate for me to remain as a staff member here. Curse me, call me a traitor, label me as untrustworthy, I don't care. I'm done with all of you.

Goodbye.

[mjn.mixael]

Huh... maybe Goober's world-ending scenario might come true after all. It's just the HLP world and not all of reality.

Battuta, I have missed you.

[Aesaar]

At this point I think it's fairly obvious that Goober and Sandwich both consider Goober's pride more important than the well-being of this community.

HLP was on the decline already, and losing its most dedicated remaining members is going to accelerate that significantly.  You two are going to be the dictators of a ghost town.

But hey, at least Goober will still have his pride.  And that's what really matters, isn't it?

[BlackDove]

Yeah, I don't blame Axem to be honest, and his decision there.

That said, the solution he was gunning for from the start seems to be the correct one. Dragging this on has served no one at all, and just had you lose good men. I guess we'll find out how many more need to be lost.

[mjn.mixael]

Literally the only thing keeping me here is the BtA team who are relying on me and a bullet list of projects I intend to finish... and I always finish my projects.

That said.. these projects can be completed elsewhere if that needs to happen.

[karajorma]

Ahhh. So Sandwich's Hail Mary is to try to shift the blame and claim all the admins and mods are bad when he doesn't actually know what went wrong with the de-admining or who was responsible.

Since you're happy to post Axem's post in public, probably against his wishes since he didn't make any public comment, is there any reason we shouldn't be de-admining you?

[Phantom Hoover]

If there's one thing that's become clear in the last hour or two it's that after this is done, if there's still an HLP left, the admin/leadership team will need to be taken apart and put back together again.

[Sandwich]

Since you're happy to post Axem's post in public, probably against his wishes since he didn't make any public comment, is there any reason we shouldn't be de-admining you?

https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=97056.new#new

[mjn.mixael]

Putting my money where my mouth is... cancelling my monthly site donation until I see where this is going. I'm not paying for a benevolent dictatorship.

[Lorric]

Who is going to stay? In particular, will any admin besides Goober or Sandwich stay?

EDIT: Karajorma's post would seem to indicate he won't be leaving. So that's one.

[BlueFlames]

L'etat, c'est mois.

I see Goober is willing to watch HLP burn right to the ground, as long as he doesn't have to give up his title, like a good fascist benevolent dictator.  I wonder if Sandwich can recognize the difference between a benevolent dictator and a malicious dictator.

I know I haven't contributed much to the community in years/decades, but for what it's worth, if the site staff mass-resigns and HLP becomes the Goob & Sandwich Funhouse, then I'm going to bounce.  You two need to look further than the end of your own noses to see what damage you've done.