Since people have asked for someone other than Sandwich to communicate what's going on and Sandwich is agreed (several posts ago) and I have a few minutes before work this morning: A majority of active staff have called for Goober's removal since the abuse of power situation arose. A majority of staff have also indicated they will resign if Goober's admin status continues. We attempted a compromise that clearly did not work.
If you see several staff are no longer staff in the coming days (myself included, as of Friday if the situation persists), you now know why.
I don't understand. How does the minority get to overrule the majority? Is it HLP ownership that wants to keep Goober as admin?
Nope. We're just being too nice. People are saying they'll leave rather than kicking out the people who are the problem.
Nobody is preventing anyone else from posting here; I honestly don't know why none of the other admins or global mods have given any updates.
I'm not surprised you don't understand why. The main reason I haven't posted was mainly down to showing both yourself and Goober more respect by not discussing what is going on in the internal than you've shown us with your hints about it. (That and the fact that my Internet has decided today is a good day to break down, leading to me having to do this on the phone)
You want a post. Given that your intransigence over losing Goober is a major factor in us possibly losing Axem, fine I'll post.
As far as I'm concerned Goober has been given every chance to apologise for his actions. Instead last week Goober reiterated on the global moderator board that he feels that should the global mods and admins not agree with his definition of defamation he'd feel entitled to look into legal options.
That was my last straw. And I called for Goober to be de-admined. I've tried to be fair to Goober given his long history on this board but at this point I no longer give a damn what is in that apology. I simply do not trust it.
At this point every single admin or global mod except for Sandwich who has commented agrees that Goober should go. We've posted as much on the internal.
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.
So why do I still have the title admin next to my name? Why didn't I quit too? Because I feel that HLP deserves better. If I quit, it would be to go to whatever People's Front of Hard Light site got set up. No. The community has spent years building up our reputation as THE place for Freespace. It shouldn't be burned down because one person can't stand to hear some uncomfortable truths.
Quite frankly I feel I bear some of the blame for this mess. Instead of slapping Goober down as an admin for his threat to sue, I challenged him to also sue me like a regular forum member might have. This was meant as an attempt to head off any drama rather than escalate it to the point where it would require anything more serious than a clarification from Goober that he didn't intend to sue or bully other users.
That was a mistake as I hadn't considered that Goober would be
this stubborn.
This was also a mistake because it means as someone involved in the altercation on the thread, I have felt a pressure to stay out of the discussions over how to resolve things.
Given the events today, I don't feel that it is helpful to do that when I'm dealing with a pair of admins who feel that the rest of the forum shouldn't have a say in how HLP is run because it is a benevolent dictatorship.
Goober has to go. He cannot remain an admin on HLP. I didn't want to post that earlier because I was a coward. I didn't want to face accusations of rabble rousing. I no longer care about that.
