[Nyctaeus]

2) The fact that Fusion's original moderated account had received a general Discord fan wasn't a factor in the decision, as the moderators didn't know about it until Fusion brought it up in this thread. We're actively discussing about whether to make this a formal policy going forward, because as Grizzly pointed out, using an alt account to evade a platform ban is explicitly against Discord's community guidelines.

Banning an account for simply being on a server but without any activity on this given server for long years is also not a valid reason to ban an account. Discord explicitly lists the possible causes of ban and by giving mass-ban for people who simply follow stuff on the server, Discord didn't follow their own rules... But they are large corporation and their platforms hosts millions of users and thousands of servers, so they why would they care?

3) By far the most important: Fusion has on two separate occasions used blatantly antisemitic language around members of the HLP community. He was initially banned for the first incident a few years ago, but that ban was rescinded with the understanding that he would be closely scrutinized going forward. (I'd like to direct attention to Fusion's public apology after that incident, in which he fully acknowledged and accepted that fact.) After the second incident several months ago, Fusion came extremely close to being banned, and it was only after prolonged discussion that his Discord account was placed in a restricted role that prevented him from interacting with general discussion channels. Suffice it to say that Fusion was operating on incredibly thin ice, and when it was discovered that he'd had an unrestricted alternate account on the server that he never notified the moderators about, that was considered the last straw, and the decision was made to ban him.

But for his past transgressions, he as been already punished. This is not questioned in this case and I see no voices that finds his previous punishment as unjust.

How much time passed since the last accident involving Fusion? Did anybody report anykind of suspicious, provocative or toxic behaviour of this user after that?

I say some time passed and I had my own objections about this person in the past, denying him access to some projects and social circles I'm associated with. But nothing raised my suspicion after that and other members of the community started to speak about Fusion with more appreciative tone. Eventually I was forced to reconsider my stance and allow him to approach to social circles I'm part of, because I simply could not find a reason to not to. Just like Administrator and Moderator crew right now.

The mighty head of the HLP Banhammer of Ownage cannot hang above person's head forever. This is not how any law in the world works. Especially in situations like that, as we handle simple misunderstanding caused by neglect, lack of communication and information inertia. The Banhammer is the ultimate tool to solve cases, while [with all due respect to Fusion] good, old Hanlon's Razor is more then enough in this case.

To some of the broader points being raised: when making moderation decisions about a user, we do not take into account what projects they may be working on, or how skilled they are at writing code or modeling ships. What concerns us is whether the user has been adhering to the guidelines for behavior that have been established for this community. Fusion made extremely disturbing public comments on multiple occasions, and this is the eventual consequence of those actions.

We do not try to redeem possible misdoings of Fusion by highlighting his contributions. We do highlight that majority of his behaviour in the community is correct and it is so for quite some time, and moderation team seems to be completely ignoring that in their judgement. By bringing up some details from behind the scenes, as well as opinions of multiple community members expressed in this thread, we also try to make you aware, that many people in the community disagree with the decisionmaking of the moderation team in this case.

You - as moderation team - are obliged to take those voices into consideration, because you're supposed to maintain order in the community, not commence actions against the will of many of it's members. I specifically oppose against banning people for being sloppy at managing their accounts and making a fuzz... Which unfortunately happens all the time, because we're all simple humans and we're quite messy kind by our very default. Aside Grizzly, I see no voices of support for your doings.

I also do not see any real arguments to support your stance - which is pretty much 'because he was doing something stupid years ago'. I also did. We all did... But we changed, and so did Fusion. I also see no arguments that make this decision any compatible with moderation standards as specified by members of the moderation itself.

[Fusion]

I apologize for the delay in replying to this. In addition to the collective moderator position that karajorma posted above, I wanted to clarify a few more points that have been raised:

I reached out to Chief yesterday evening - was able to add him because I saw he was also in the FOTG server - to try and pursue the Rule 12 solution of appealing to a moderator, which I had at the time been evidently unable to do. The discussion I had with him seemed to showcase the moderator team's justification for the ban is actively in flux and is not explicitly representative of karajorma's response. I'd like to add that the following list of chronological responses regarding the mods' apparent justifications and opinions are not explicitly Chief's own.

>The new account was an attempt at ban circumvention, despite karajorma having already acknowledged the account wasn't new
>The account wasn't new, but it was new to HLP Discord
>The account wasn't new to HLP Discord
>Because the backup account was made to ensure I could still be active in the community despite a nuke of my main account, this is justification for my ban despite neither the rules nor past precedent saying such
>Rules 6 and 8 don't apply because the main account got banned by Discord, despite again this having nothing to do with the community
>Simply giving my backup account the restriction role now that it was active was the wrong action to take, despite it being objectively the "least serious moderation tool" to "correct [the] behavior" of me having access to those channels
>Using the backup account means that the mods can supersede the existing guidelines to ban it despite no rules being broken
>The mod team doesn't care about why the main account was banned - the fact the backup account is being used itself is justification enough for a ban despite the rules and past precedent saying it isn't
>There's no precedent where the mod team let someone remain in the community who had a previous account nuked by Discord that they knew about - which ignores the fact that I am literally the precedent for that since my original Discord account was nuked 1-2 years before the initial debacle happened in 2021
>Using the backup account period, without having let the mod team know, constitutes an attempt to circumvent the mod team's restrictions through the role assignment

I'd like to now address the points in Mongoose's post directly.

1) The moderators were not aware that Fusion had an alternate account on the server before this. As you can imagine, we don't exactly have the time to regularly scroll through thousands of offline server members to see if any names or icons match those of moderated individuals. We only realized that this account belonged to Fusion when he posted in the website support channel a few days ago, and we noticed the account name/icon similarities.

The account's presence was verifiable for years. It would've been visible in the join logs for the server, in the member records, and most importantly, it would've shown up any time my main account was tagged since it had almost the same name(Fusionblaster). If the moderators weren't aware that I had a backup account on the server for over half a decade, I really don't know what to say - there certainly was plenty of time and plenty of opportunities in discussion over the years where it would've been noticed and could've been brought up, so I'm admittedly not sure how this is a failure on my part to disclose its existence. Again, if the mods wanted me to say "hey, I'm using a backup account now, can you give me the restriction role," then I'm sorry I didn't do that, but respectfully, I was more immediately focused on rebuilding my friend and server list, and any lingering thought I may have had about that went away when the restriction role got applied.

2) The fact that Fusion's original moderated account had received a general Discord fan wasn't a factor in the decision, as the moderators didn't know about it until Fusion brought it up in this thread. We're actively discussing about whether to make this a formal policy going forward, because as Grizzly pointed out, using an alt account to evade a platform ban is explicitly against Discord's community guidelines.

Based on the discussion I had with Chief, this is apparently untrue that it wasn't a factor in the decision - if anything, it was made clear that it is being used as a justification to keep the ban in place despite the ban having not occurred due to any violations of the community's rules. Frankly the fact the moderators are seeking to create new rules and retroactively apply them to justify preexisting punishments is very concerning, especially given that HLP and Discord, aside from the former using the latter as a platform, have no direct affiliation and the former is not obligated to enforce the rules of the latter on an individual basis.

3) By far the most important: Fusion has on two separate occasions used blatantly antisemitic language around members of the HLP community. He was initially banned for the first incident a few years ago, but that ban was rescinded with the understanding that he would be closely scrutinized going forward. (I'd like to direct attention to Fusion's public apology after that incident, in which he fully acknowledged and accepted that fact.) After the second incident several months ago, Fusion came extremely close to being banned, and it was only after prolonged discussion that his Discord account was placed in a restricted role that prevented him from interacting with general discussion channels. Suffice it to say that Fusion was operating on incredibly thin ice, and when it was discovered that he'd had an unrestricted alternate account on the server that he never notified the moderators about, that was considered the last straw, and the decision was made to ban him.

What is the relevance of my past misdeeds to this? For half a decade since this, with the exception of the political discussion that gave me the restriction role due to it being "borderline," I haven't caused trouble. I've been a positive, contributing member of the community, interacting with other members, working on other projects, and contributing to an "inclusive community." I've followed the rules as they were explicitly agreed to. If the claim is going to be made that I've been on "incredibly thin ice" despite having had exactly one issue pop up over that half-decade time period, then respectfully, that seems ridiculous. The fact this entire incident has nothing to do with a violation of the rules, and is based on the fact that the moderator team either apparently negligently ignored the fact I had a backup account for years that they didn't give the restriction role when the incident happened (an account that, again, I hadn't logged into since 2020), is absolutely insane to be considered the "last straw" and justification to permanently ban me from the HLP Discord.

To some of the broader points being raised: when making moderation decisions about a user, we do not take into account what projects they may be working on, or how skilled they are at writing code or modeling ships. What concerns us is whether the user has been adhering to the guidelines for behavior that have been established for this community. Fusion made extremely disturbing public comments on multiple occasions, and this is the eventual consequence of those actions.

I have been adhering to "the guidelines that have been established for this community" for over half a decade. The single incident over that time in which it was decided that I had said something contrary to such was resolved according to the very guidelines in question. To claim that a permaban from the HLP Discord over a non-rule violation, whose justification has evidently changed substantially over the past few days, is "the eventual consequences" of this is absolutely crazy given I have by all accounts been a member of nominally good standing for years.

Finally, since Fusion has shown interest in quoting various parts of our community guidelines, I'd like to point out one of those as well:

12. Appeals:  A user subject to moderation action may consider appealing in private to a member of the moderation team.

At the time I was banned, I had no member of the moderator team to talk to on Discord, hence my rationale for making this thread. Attempting to reach out to anyone on the forum would take weeks given the forum is mostly inactive except for threads like this and campaign/model releases, so I could not realistically make an appeal in any reasonable period of time after the ban. It was days after the ban that I was able to reach out to Chief and talk with him - and the resulting talk I had seemed to showcase the fluctuating rationale of the mod team for keeping this ban in place, along with the apparent willingness of presumably a majority of the mods to ignore (and per Mongoose's comment, seemingly seek to manipulate through retroactive application of new policy) the rules the community are supposed to follow. I'm genuinely concerned now about this whole thing since it feels like something that was already resolved (when my backup account was given the restriction role) is being massively blown out of proportion as a form of... I don't know. Excessive punishment? Retaliation for past misdeeds? I really don't know the right word to describe it, only that it feels wrong, and I honestly feel frustrated about it.

[lordhood117]

2) The fact that Fusion's original moderated account had received a general Discord fan wasn't a factor in the decision, as the moderators didn't know about it until Fusion brought it up in this thread. We're actively discussing about whether to make this a formal policy going forward, because as Grizzly pointed out, using an alt account to evade a platform ban is explicitly against Discord's community guidelines.

Suffice it to say that Fusion was operating on incredibly thin ice, and when it was discovered that he'd had an unrestricted alternate account on the server that he never notified the moderators about, that was considered the last straw, and the decision was made to ban him.

This is an entirely inappropriate action for the moderation team to take.  This is HLP.  We are not run by Discord.  As such, Discord Terms of Service do not, and should not, affect HLP policy now or in the future.  In addition, alt accounts are against ToS namely for when the alt account is used to violate elements of the ToS (I.e. ban evasion).  There was no ban in place at the time of discovery, just a restriction.  As such, the appropriate move, under HLP rules, would be to add the role-based restriction to the alt as well and contact the user to judge whether a genuine attempt to bypass the restriction was involved.  The bans are an unwarranted escalation, and should be rescinded.

To some of the broader points being raised: when making moderation decisions about a user, we do not take into account what projects they may be working on, or how skilled they are at writing code or modeling ships. What concerns us is whether the user has been adhering to the guidelines for behavior that have been established for this community. Fusion made extremely disturbing public comments on multiple occasions, and this is the eventual consequence of those actions.

Is the written word not correctable by nature?
Is there evidence of someone from a protected group being offended by Fusion’s most recent words?  If so, what specifically was offensive?  If not, was this judgement based solely on the views of the moderation team?  If that’s the case, this is not punishment.  This is language policing, and I will not stand for such an abuse of power in this community.

Finally, since Fusion has shown interest in quoting various parts of our community guidelines, I'd like to point out one of those as well:

12. Appeals:  A user subject to moderation action may consider appealing in private to a member of the moderation team.

This is not appropriate conduct for someone in charge of moderating the content of a website to conform with site rules of conduct and the laws and regulations on web content imposed by countries.  This kind of passive-aggression and “gotcha” moment-seeking attitude is unprofessional and unwelcome.

We need cooler heads to prevail here, and this vindictiveness and closed-mindedness serves only to make things worse for all.

[shiv]

Let me rephrase this once again: nobody is trying to justify Fusion’s past actions for which he was punished. He was punished for antisemitic comments, and rightly so. There is nothing more disgusting than racism, Nazism, or any other form of hatred. But Fusion has already been punished for that.

In your argument, you’re saying that Fusion was banned because he was already on thin ice. However, this logic does not take into account the fact that he did not act deliberately or maliciously. He simply made a mistake, with no harmful intent whatsoever. Most importantly, there was no intention of repeating the same mistake for a third time.

Yet you keep bringing up issues for which he has already been punished, as if they were directly related to the harmless behavior he recently displayed. Let me remind you that no legal system I know of allows a person to be punished twice for the same offense. There is even a Latin term for this principle: non bis in idem.

Many voices have raised concerns that this ban is too severe a punishment for something Fusion tried to explain and apologize for. If the staff does not take these concerns into consideration, then please explain: is the HLP crew’s decision truly the voice of the community, or is it an echo of their own subjective biases?

[Belisarius]

1) The moderators were not aware that Fusion had an alternate account on the server before this. As you can imagine, we don't exactly have the time to regularly scroll through thousands of offline server members to see if any names or icons match those of moderated individuals. We only realized that this account belonged to Fusion when he posted in the website support channel a few days ago, and we noticed the account name/icon similarities.

So there obviously was no intent for Fusion to evade any ban at all. Otherwise he would've chosen another name and profile picture.

This also means that you're punishing him twice for the same violation.

2) The fact that Fusion's original moderated account had received a general Discord fan wasn't a factor in the decision, as the moderators didn't know about it until Fusion brought it up in this thread. We're actively discussing about whether to make this a formal policy going forward, because as Grizzly pointed out, using an alt account to evade a platform ban is explicitly against Discord's community guidelines.

Not only are you admitting that you want to deliberately punish him twice for the same rule violation that happened a long time ago, but you also want to start a vendetta against unpopular opinions and are using the Discord rules as justification for this. Who do you think you are? The Discord online police? Stop this nonsense! That's just malicious and contributes absolutely nothing to a lively, inclusive online community.

3) By far the most important: Fusion has on two separate occasions used blatantly antisemitic language around members of the HLP community. He was initially banned for the first incident a few years ago, but that ban was rescinded with the understanding that he would be closely scrutinized going forward. (I'd like to direct attention to Fusion's public apology after that incident, in which he fully acknowledged and accepted that fact.) After the second incident several months ago, Fusion came extremely close to being banned, and it was only after prolonged discussion that his Discord account was placed in a restricted role that prevented him from interacting with general discussion channels. Suffice it to say that Fusion was operating on incredibly thin ice, and when it was discovered that he'd had an unrestricted alternate account on the server that he never notified the moderators about, that was considered the last straw, and the decision was made to ban him.

So you were just waiting for him to make a mistake, which isn't even one, so you could finally get rid of him. What kind of people are you?

To some of the broader points being raised: when making moderation decisions about a user, we do not take into account what projects they may be working on, or how skilled they are at writing code or modeling ships. What concerns us is whether the user has been adhering to the guidelines for behavior that have been established for this community. Fusion made extremely disturbing public comments on multiple occasions, and this is the eventual consequence of those actions.

Maybe you should start doing that, because your main page still says “modding community” and nothing about a “personal feelings are everything” community. You've completely forgotten what this is actually about. If we knew each other personally, we could at worst punch each other in the face when we disagree, but this is an international community that was originally dedicated to modding Freespace. Please grow up and stop looking for ways to get at each other. That's not just deliberate power play, it's abuse.

And Mongoose, I'm no native english speaker, so maybe I'm understanding this wrong, but "may consider" still means that he can, not that he must.

You're really doing everything to tear the last bits of this community, that is holding it together, apart.

[karajorma]

I still don't have time to deal with this properly, but I will address two points.

1. Fusion was on probation after the previous two incidents. He's not being punished again for his previous behaviour so much as receiving a suspended sentence. He was well aware after the first case of antisemitism, that he would be banned upon any repeat. He barely survived the second case on a technicality, and given that after receiving that partial ban, he defended his antisemitism to me in private chat, the only reason he wasn't banned back then is precisely because he had already been punished for it and it would have been punishing him again to ban him after already having decided to simply limit his account.

That leaves me in the position of knowing that Fusion doesn't regret his second antisemetic comment or his use of racist dog whistles. And if he disputes that, he's welcome to give me permission to post that chat so that everyone can see he feels he did nothing wrong.  I might be busy, but doing that wouldn't take long.

Now if people want to argue that his offence this time doesn't rise to the level of parole violation, that's a possible argument. But any further argument that he's being punished again is pointless, he's not.

If the staff does not take these concerns into consideration, then please explain: is the HLP crew%u2019s decision truly the voice of the community, or is it an echo of their own subjective biases?

Quite frankly, if someone who has the respect of the community wants to join the moderation team, they're welcome to step forward. We've pointed out multiple times that the team is stretched, and part of the reason why the community might feel decisions are rushed, slow or unfair is because they are unaware of how long it takes to get a consensus that the team feels is fair. What I'm seeing here is a lot of backseat moderation from people who have never stepped up to be the voice of the community, despite us asking for help multiple times. If you feel that you could make fair decisions when it comes to dealing with issues like these and you feel the community would listen to you, why haven't you stepped up?

[Fusion]

1. Fusion was on probation after the previous two incidents. He's not being punished again for his previous behaviour so much as receiving a suspended sentence. He was well aware after the first case of antisemitism, that he would be banned upon any repeat. He barely survived the second case on a technicality, and given that after receiving that partial ban, he defended his antisemitism to me in private chat, the only reason he wasn't banned back then is precisely because he had already been punished for it and it would have been punishing him again to ban him after already having decided to simply limit his account.

Well, I certainly wasn't told that any "probation" was going to last longer than 8 real-life months. I'm now even more confused, frankly - so the fact I'm banned now is, what, the ban I would've gotten had the mod team not realized the restriction role was more sensible per the rules, and has nothing at all to do with the fact I used a backup account the mod team hadn't already put the restriction role on? Doesn't that... completely countermand the reason that was originally given for why I got banned? I'm also confused by the 'suspended sentence' - is this ban somehow not permanent? Qaz certainly didn't indicate there was a time limit on it in his post on the server. If the concept of double punishment is already the case, then that would make this ban wrong either because it's punishment for what happened 8 months ago, or because I was already "punished" by having the restriction role put on my backup account, completely ignoring the fact that the reasoning given for the ban itself goes against the rules.

That leaves me in the position of knowing that Fusion doesn't regret his second antisemetic comment or his use of racist dog whistles. And if he disputes that, he's welcome to give me permission to post that chat so that everyone can see he feels he did nothing wrong.  I might be busy, but doing that wouldn't take long.

I'm not going to deny that I don't think what I said in the conversation met the criteria of antisemitism or racism. The only person in the entire conversation who had a public complaint accusing it of being antisemitic and racist was Rhymes - who, despite doing far more than anything I did to disrupt the discussion that was going on, received a slap on the wrist in the form of a 1-day mute while I was permanently banned from ever commenting in the GC again. I also remember privately asking others who I was talking with at the time if they believed the comments were antisemitic or racist, and they didn't think they were. Yes, I do remember arguing with you in DMs about this and thinking the permanent off-topic ban was unfair. I also remember stopping arguing with you about it and accepting the restriction when you threatened to simply ban me as punishment for it instead. From my recollection as well, that was the last time we ever talked to each other directly.

Now if people want to argue that his offence this time doesn't rise to the level of parole violation, that's a possible argument. But any further argument that he's being punished again is pointless, he's not.

Respectfully, it's the only argument - mainly because it's not even an offense against the site or the community. I had a backup account, finally had to use it after over half a decade, the staff said "oh, we didn't put the restriction on this account 8 months ago," someone from staff put the restriction on, and that should've just been the end of it. There's really no reason it should've been exacerbated to a permanent ban from the Discord under the suggestion I deliberately used the backup account to evade the restriction role - by all accounts, I didn't.

Quite frankly, if someone who has the respect of the community wants to join the moderation team, they're welcome to step forward. We've pointed out multiple times that the team is stretched, and part of the reason why the community might feel decisions are rushed, slow or unfair is because they are unaware of how long it takes to get a consensus that the team feels is fair. What I'm seeing here is a lot of backseat moderation from people who have never stepped up to be the voice of the community, despite us asking for help multiple times. If you feel that you could make fair decisions when it comes to dealing with issues like these and you feel the community would listen to you, why haven't you stepped up?

Hopefully people will. There's been, what, maybe 2-3 people who've gotten mod over the last 5 years? I don't even know if anyone aside from The_E resigned, but it would be good to shake things up on the mod team a bit.

[Rhymes]

I'm not going to deny that I don't think what I said in the conversation met the criteria of antisemitism or racism. The only person in the entire conversation who had a public complaint accusing it of being antisemitic and racist was Rhymes - who, despite doing far more than anything I did to disrupt the discussion that was going on, received a slap on the wrist in the form of a 1-day mute while I was permanently banned from ever commenting in the GC again. I also remember privately asking others who I was talking with at the time if they believed the comments were antisemitic or racist, and they didn't think they were. Yes, I do remember arguing with you in DMs about this and thinking the permanent off-topic ban was unfair. I also remember stopping arguing with you about it and accepting the restriction when you threatened to simply ban me as punishment for it instead. From my recollection as well, that was the last time we ever talked to each other directly.

Hi, that's because it was antisemitic. Hope this helps.

Also "don't use a sockpuppet account to evade a ban" has been a thing on the internet pretty much as long as there's been an internet. You broke that rule. Take your L and move on.

[karajorma]

I also remember stopping arguing with you about it and accepting the restriction when you threatened to simply ban me as punishment for it instead.

So, do I have permission to post that conversation or are you going to misrepresent what was said again?

[Belisarius]

I'm not going to deny that I don't think what I said in the conversation met the criteria of antisemitism or racism. The only person in the entire conversation who had a public complaint accusing it of being antisemitic and racist was Rhymes - who, despite doing far more than anything I did to disrupt the discussion that was going on, received a slap on the wrist in the form of a 1-day mute while I was permanently banned from ever commenting in the GC again. I also remember privately asking others who I was talking with at the time if they believed the comments were antisemitic or racist, and they didn't think they were. Yes, I do remember arguing with you in DMs about this and thinking the permanent off-topic ban was unfair. I also remember stopping arguing with you about it and accepting the restriction when you threatened to simply ban me as punishment for it instead. From my recollection as well, that was the last time we ever talked to each other directly.

Please Fusion, don't argue about the initial reason for the punishment itself. What happened, has happened and up to this point we, as we're trying to help your current cause, did this under the impression that you accepted that punishment and regret the things you said that led to the punishment.

I wasn't in any way part of this past discussion and I have no religious background (full atheist here), but religious arguments can lead to resentments especially when strong feelings are being involved.

On the contrary all this does is justifying the arguments the mod team considers valid for their decision.

Also "don't use a sockpuppet account to evade a ban" has been a thing on the internet pretty much as long as there's been an internet. You broke that rule. Take your L and move on.

Which he didn't do. So please stop the act.

Quite frankly, if someone who has the respect of the community wants to join the moderation team, they're welcome to step forward. We've pointed out multiple times that the team is stretched, and part of the reason why the community might feel decisions are rushed, slow or unfair is because they are unaware of how long it takes to get a consensus that the team feels is fair. What I'm seeing here is a lot of backseat moderation from people who have never stepped up to be the voice of the community, despite us asking for help multiple times. If you feel that you could make fair decisions when it comes to dealing with issues like these and you feel the community would listen to you, why haven't you stepped up?

Everyone here has personal commitments, and Freespace often gets neglected as a hobby. You yourself said that you don't really have the time to deal with things like this, but it's not fair to use this fact indirectly as a reproach against those who raise their voices.

And my impression, after the discussion here, is that critical voices that approach certain situations with a certain indifference are not considered suitable for your team. This is because I believe that personal feelings and resentments are more important to you than finding practical solutions. This is only my personal impression, and I am open to being proven wrong, but the mod team's performance to date tends to reinforce this impression.

I am even inclined to accept your subtle offer and apply for the mod team. But I am also one of those people who are indifferent to certain things, and I have no problem speaking plainly, regardless of other people's personal feelings.

What also puts me off a bit is the requirement that applicants must be respected members of the community. I make music, but does that make me a respected member? It's all too vague for me.

Be that as it may, I still consider your reaction to be completely exaggerated, and it also makes me worry about what might happen to me if I ever step on the wrong toes here. Will I then also have to watch out for a possible vendetta?

[karajorma]

If you're not respected by the community, no one is going to listen to your attempts to moderate, are they? So what's the point of a moderator who has to have a second moderator step in and parrot their decisions.

[Belisarius]

That doesn't really help me right now, but it's probably beyond the scope of this thread to try to elaborate on my question or the topic of “respected community members.” Would you be willing to discuss this with me privately or refer me to someone with whom I could discuss my questions, since you already said that you're limited on time right now?

The topic of this thread is Fusion and your decision to ban him from Discord. Further questions about general moderation would only distract from that.

[mjn.mixael]

If only the moderation wasn't so incompetent that even Axem had enough, un-admined himself, and left the community entirely...

Axem was easily one of the most respected community members, thoughtful, careful, and way more approachable than the current team. And even he noped out. So I do not blame any respected member who does not step forward.