Author Topic: Discord issue  (Read 9757 times)

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Offline The E

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There's an issue here that has nothing to do with the ban, and Andreas was right to object to it. The E's first post all but calls Andreas a Holocaust denier, which is basically equivalent to calling him a card-carrying Neo-Nazi. It's a profoundly serious condemnation and should be treated as such. By Andreas' own admission, he made "insensitive jokes" for immature reasons. That isn't in dispute. But it is not equivalent to denying the Holocaust, as E implied. And even if Andreas had held that position at the time, he doesn't now. Either way, unless the situation is profoundly different than it seems, calling Andreas a "Holocaust denier" was inappropriate.

It is my admittedly un-lawyerly opinion that the statements under discussion fulfill at least some points of the german legal definition of holocaust denial.

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Secondly, there's E's claim to have blocked Andreas because they couldn't reply. On the surface, this doesn't really add up. Unless Andreas were spamming E, that isn't a particularly sensible reason to block him in the first place. But "friending" is mutual on Discord, and unless they were "friends" in the first place, Andreas shouldn't have been able to message E in the first place. Since both parties agree that Andreas messaged E after the ban, they must have been friends, so E should have been able to respond to Andreas. (Discord also allows DMs between people who have a server in common, whether or not they're friends, but if that were the case, E should still have been able to reply to Andreas.)

He started messaging me at 1951 on February 3rd. I blocked him, out of reflex more than anything, to give myself time to think about my response. When I came to a conclusion, I unblocked him and tried to message him, at which point discord informed me that the message could not be delivered.

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None of that's directly related to the ban. What is definitely related is how strangely this ban was handled. As far as I'm aware, no one was notified of the ban. I performed server-wide searches on Discord for "ban," "banned", "kick", "remove", "suspend", and even "hammer" and found no relevant results. Andreas was not notified of the ban - neither why he was banned nor even that he had been. But, most tellingly, he DM'd one of the other Discord moderators to ask if he had been, and that moderator didn't know.

Let that sink in a bit. A ban is the single strongest tool in a moderator's toolbox. They're compared to Mjolnir for a reason. For this other moderator to be unaware that the ban had happened implies that E invoked a moderator's strongest tool without seeking the consent of, nor even notifying, the other moderators. If E had even posted "I just banned Andreas" in some moderator-only server, then this other mod would have been aware. They would certainly have been aware if there were any discussion about it. That implies that The E performed the ban unilaterally and swept it under the rug.

Just to be ABSOLUTELY BLOODY CLEAR about this: I did NOT issue that ban. I did vote for a ban in the relevant discussion in our internal modchat, but I explicitly did NOT act unilaterally.

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Andreas has repeatedly stated that the comments he was banned for were made a year ago. So far, E hasn't denied that. That brings us to the heart of this case. If Andreas' behavior wasn't ban-worthy a year ago, and hasn't been ban-worthy in the mean time, where did this come from? So far, both parties have been content to leave unchallenged the narrative that Andreas' behavior has been fine since then. If that's the case, why ban him now?

What motivated a immediate, unilateral ban a year after the fact?

We also recently banned another member of the discord for similar statements made in another community (except in their case, they are unrepentant and never fell back on "it was just a joke to trigger the libs"). We held off on that ban because we were informed by members of that other community that us issuing a ban would upset some delicate balance on their end, and because banning over off-site behaviour is a massive grey area.
Over the past few weeks, we had some discussions about what moderation should be, what community standards should be, and we made the decision to issue bans for known people with nazi leanings.
As Fusion's statements were well-documented, and seeing as how we are unwilling to entertain "I was just joking" as a credible defence or excuse, the ban happened.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: I Just Wanted A Chance To Explain Myself
The fact the person who's harassed me with calls of "Nazi" and "holocaust denier" for almost 2 years is the same person who set the **** off with Mjn that drove him off HLP and the same person who tried to and successfully incited a group of people to get Goober deadminned is very concerning.

I don't think grouping yourself with Goober is doing yourself any favors.

The fact the person who's harassed me with calls of "Nazi" and "holocaust denier" for almost 2 years

While I'm not going to make excuses for that behaviour and we are discussing several issues surrounding both of these matters internally, the fact remains that you wouldn't have faced two years of being called "Nazi" and "holocaust denier" if you hadn't thought it would be fun to pretend to be one.

Still think it was a good idea? Still think it was funny?

Yeah, this is kind of my take. You ****ed up and you've got to live with the consequences. It's just a game discord.

 

Offline Fusion

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Re: Re: I Just Wanted A Chance To Explain Myself
Still think it was a good idea? Still think it was funny?

As I said on Discord during our conversation when this thread was locked, No, I don't. Just wanted to reiterate that here publicly.

 
Why did you wait until after a ban to walk back from it? It's not like you weren't called out on it before.

 

Offline Mito [PL]

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Now, before I make a longer post as a response to the bunch of posts that popped up today...

Joshua, do you really think that the previous acts of randomly pinging Rybak with the intent being a blatant invitation to yet another verbal assault were equal to just asking him about these past events? Especially when you could also DM him, instead of just tossing that into the HLP Discord?

In a way, he handled your bristling for a fight better than most of us.
How do you kill a hydra?

You starve it to death.

 
I remember having conversations about this and the response was always either a) it was a joke or b) outright denial. So I was kinda waiting for him to act unilaterally.

 

Offline Fusion

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Why did you wait until after a ban to walk back from it? It's not like you weren't called out on it before.

I walked back from it on the 30th of April, 2019. Multiple times. And walked back from it on the rare occasions Phantom attempted to call me a Nazi in HLP Discord proper. I walked back from it in my prior statement in this thread. I have continually indicated over nearly 2 years that these are not my personal views and, again, that I believe the Holocaust happened. I didn’t “wait until after a ban.”

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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And walked back from it on the rare occasions Phantom attempted to call me a Nazi in HLP Discord proper.
As far as I can tell, this is untrue; saying that PH calling you a nazi doesn't make it true isn't "walking back" anything.
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(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

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(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

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I walked back from it on the 30th of April, 2019. Multiple times.

I was there. I recall that you claimed to be joking and denied that what you were doing was holocaust denial.

 

Offline Fusion

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And walked back from it on the rare occasions Phantom attempted to call me a Nazi in HLP Discord proper.
As far as I can tell, this is untrue; saying that PH calling you a nazi doesn't make it true isn't "walking back" anything.
When he did so I actively denied such. Again I have consistently stated and indicated through my actions over the last near-2 years that I believe the holocaust happened and am not a Nazi. I have not at any point over said time indicated otherwise in HLP's discord, forums, or any affiliated DMs or other discords.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Now, before I make a longer post as a response to the bunch of posts that popped up today...

Joshua, do you really think that the previous acts of randomly pinging Rybak with the intent being a blatant invitation to yet another verbal assault were equal to just asking him about these past events? Especially when you could also DM him, instead of just tossing that into the HLP Discord?

In a way, he handled your bristling for a fight better than most of us.

Maybe it would be better for your mental health if you just didn't get involved in this. You've already harassed a long time community member into quitting his role.


Most people manage to go through life with zero Holocaust denial in any form. If you have changed as a person and do genuinely regret your actions, that is fantastic and so much better than most people manage. But I think a Discord ban is a fairly small price to pay. It is, again, only a video game discord for a tiny community.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Frankly I think this thread would best be served by the discord mods issuing a final judgment and declaring the matter closed.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Bringing Modders Together

 

Offline Fusion

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But I think a Discord ban is a fairly small price to pay. It is, again, only a video game discord for a tiny community.

Then why a ban if the Discord is so insignificant? Functionally the Discord is additionally the more active portion of the community in contrast to the much slower forums, and is where people receive their direct updates regarding Knossos, FSO, the MediaVPs, new campaigns, and campaign updates. The 'small price to pay' has been the suggestion I am a Nazi having been promulgated to such a degree that the Discord owner's comments when I asked about the ban functionally boiled down to "yeah, I’ve always thought you were a Nazi, you can’t convince me otherwise and you can’t defend yourself, **** you you’re not getting unbanned." I have behaved properly on HLP for the near two years that has happened - again, why permanently purge me from the active part of the community for past sins that I have admitted and apologized over across 2 years?

As I've mentioned, this sets a very dangerous precedent that I wholly expect people to abuse in order to get people they don't like removed for past misdeeds.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2021, 03:09:00 pm by Andreas Rybak »

 

Offline General Battuta

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It is tough to tell genuine change from appeasement (if you'll forgive the cheap pun).

I, personally, look a little warily on your attempts to build a narrative linking your discord banning (for past hate speech) to Mjn's sudden departure (for, basically, overreacting to well meant criticism: a case of everyone being catastrophically poor at emotional intelligence) to Goober's de-adminning (for unrepentantly threatening legal action and violating the long-standing HLP moderation standard of 'don't delete posts' and 'don't moderate discussions you are involved in', not just once but over a period of years) to some nebulous future threat of trumped-up personal vendettas. These are all very different cases, handled in many cases by different people. This community is extraordinarily slow to ban; there are people who vocally loathe the moderators and do almost nothing except complain about them who are still freely posting. There are people who've returned from lengthy bans and are back to participating.

So I'm not personally super sympathetic to the case that you're going to create some kind of chilling effect on posting Turner Diaries bootlegs. If anything the opposite seems to be the case; we have had two people banned recently for posting Nazi ****, yourself included, and a bunch of people are upset about it! And one of the mods most constantly targeted by complaints about his anti-fascist bias* (someone who also expresses constant frustration with Phantom Hoover, who you're trying to paint as a mastermind in all this) has thrown in the towel and given up. That doesn't seem like a great wave of purges to me.

If you are in fact posting in good faith, please consider 1) that it is genuinely hard to tell, given the situation and 2) that you might be better off with just an apology and acceptance for now. I think that would seem much more genuine than worrying about dangerous precedents.

In any case this is all in the hands of the Discord mods now. It's their Discord and they can do what they want with it.

*fascists should be punched in the face in real life

 

Offline Fusion

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You shouldn't be looking warily. Almost 2 years of consistently indicating I am not a Nazi and believe the Holocaust happened should be more than enough evidence to you and everyone else that, again, I am not a Nazi and believe the Holocaust happened. My actions on HLP's Discord and forums have additionally followed with no deviation to suggest that I am a Nazi or believe the Holocaust didn't happen. My issues with Hoover stem from his involvement in all three instances(creating the petition thread for Goober's removal, having restarted the conflict with Mjn on the Discord according to the chat logs), and having publicly called me a Nazi in HLP the day before I was banned(which I denied, again staying consistent). Additionally, your excuse of "people who've returned from lengthy bans and are back to participating" means nothing considering MageKing told me, quote, "You will not be unbanned." I can't return from a length ban and go back to participating if the ban is permanent.

And yes, I do fully believe that banning people for past wrongs, especially past wrongs that didn't happen on HLP, will lead to weaponization of the ban system. The fact people are opposed to this, as well as prior comments made indicating such opposition, make that clear here. That you have to even suggest I am not posting in good faith is exceedingly disappointing to me given, again, my continued statements of not being a Nazi and believing the Holocaust happened over the near 2 years. It should not be 'genuinely hard to tell,' I've already apologized multiple times, and I see no reason to accept being banned for something I wasn't even banned for when it actually happened, let alone getting banned for it nearly 2 years after the fact.

 

Offline General Battuta

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If people think handwringing about fascists is spurious I would encourage you to go look at the discord communities for, say, Skyrim modding. Without proactive moderation it can get very jackboots very quick.

e:

You shouldn't be looking warily. Almost 2 years of consistently indicating I am not a Nazi and believe the Holocaust happened should be more than enough evidence to you and everyone else that, again, I am not a Nazi and believe the Holocaust happened.

Were it so easy! It's hard to rebuild trust after something like this, and I acknowledge it can be frustrating—for both of us, because a lot of neofash types are very careful to hide their power level. Morgy/CWG Andrew never said anything overtly fascist on HLP discord, and yet...

But it is, again, not up to me. It is in the hands of the Discord mods now.

  

Offline Fusion

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I don't even own Skyrim so not sure why I'd ever end up there. As is though, wouldn't the consensus of the discord mods also be influenced by the global team of administrators in order to maintain consistency between the discord and forums and prevent their divergence?

 

Offline General Battuta

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You're not the only person reading this thread!

I don't think there has ever been any stated desire to make Discord a formal extension of HLP's administration. It's just a discord about HLP.

 

Offline Fusion

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I don't think there has ever been any stated desire to make Discord a formal extension of HLP's administration. It's just a discord about HLP.

Considering most of the active membership of the community engages in general discussion there instead of the forum, mods have channels dedicated to their development and bug-fixing that are notably more active than those on here, and from my personal experience actual campaign development occurs more through the Discord than through the subforums in the campaign forums on here, it may admittedly be beneficial.

Well, that, and HLP directly linking from its website to the Discord saying that it is the HLP Discord.