Open Site Blathering (formerly Advice from iridium ITT)

[Sene]

One would think you'd move on and try to focus your considerable resources on building your own welcoming & quality community to rival MTGS, instead of making this a site an outlet for pettiness and satisfying personal grudges.

Just saying.

[Col. Khaddafi]

Don't hesitate to nominate other awesome mod lounge posts that might have skipped my compilation if you feel like it Sene!

[Blackhound]

One would think you'd move on and try to focus your considerable resources on building your own welcoming & quality community to rival MTGS, instead of making this a site an outlet for pettiness and satisfying personal grudges.

Just saying.

Could you post somthing from the "user X is a great card analyst thread or the "user X PM is stupid thread please" ?

I would like to see all the cyber-bullying that went on in these threads in the mod lounge, after all they were a threat to real life.

[Col. Khaddafi]

One would think you'd move on and try to focus your considerable resources on building your own welcoming & quality community to rival MTGS, instead of making this a site an outlet for pettiness and satisfying personal grudges.

Just saying.

Serious post though: Although I have already pointed this out to you in that other defunct forum, you seem to have an excessively high opinion about yourself.

Lets try to forget for a while that you actively worked to get me banned as the original leak told me. Since I knew my days were counted, I only thought about warning my community members who were being actively lied by you guys, about what really was up, since they deserved more than being deceived. Did I post anything on the main forums or
in starcity games? No. I warned the people who needed to know.

But then you add insult to injury by just making a character assassination on top of banning me for "sarcasm" through the posting in CI that I was banned for "taking malicious actions against the website" when I did exactly the contrary: being true to the community I represented at the time.

Since I am an adult and I've learned to not be butt-mad at what random strangers slander at myself, I'm more than happy to join the fun and deconstruct these slanderous allegations through tongue in cheek humor (hence the avvy, thanks guys, specially Arcadic!).

This said, regarding your allegations about my attitude, I don't feel the need to take the high road myself, because as kpaca put it in the chat l like to drive on whatever road i please, ignoring speed limits.



Also, rest assured I plan on continuing putting my resources in building a community where I can make sure that the administration is present and has the
right backend access everytime there are things that need to be done, a community where staff members learn to earn the respect from the userbase instead of taking it for granted for rank reasons, but also a community in which I can make sure that people are not continuously harassed and accused of being part of a so-called hivemind or some other discriminatory attitudes.

[Yannaria]

One would think you'd move on and try to focus your considerable resources on building your own welcoming & quality community to rival MTGS, instead of making this a site an outlet for pettiness and satisfying personal grudges.

Just saying.

Serious post though: Although I have already pointed this out to you in that other defunct forum, you seem to have an excessively high opinion about yourself.

Lets try to forget for a while that you actively worked to get me banned as the original leak told me. Since I knew my days were counted, I only thought about warning my
community members who were being actively lied by you guys, about what really was up, since they deserved more than being deceived. Did I post anything on the main forums or in starcity games? No. I warned the people who needed to know.

But then you add insult to injury by just making a character assassination on top of banning me for "sarcasm" through the posting in CI that I was banned for "taking malicious actions against the website" when I did exactly the contrary: being true to the community I represented at the time.

Since I am an adult and I've learned to not be butt-mad at what random strangers slander at myself, I'm more than happy to join the fun and deconstruct these slanderous allegations through tongue in cheek humor (hence the avvy, thanks guys, specially Arcadic!).

This said, regarding your allegations about my attitude, I don't feel the need to take the high road myself, because as kpaca put it in the chat l like to drive on whatever road i please, ignoring
speed limits.



Also, rest assured I plan on continuing putting my resources in building a community where I can make sure that the administration is present and has the right backend access everytime there are things that need to be done, a community where staff members learn to earn the respect from the userbase instead of taking it for granted for rank reasons, but also a community in which I can make sure that people are not continuously harassed and accused of being part of a so-called hivemind or some other discriminatory attitudes.

thank you for this post

[Blackhound]

One would think you'd move on and try to focus your considerable resources on building your own welcoming & quality community to rival MTGS, instead of making this a site an outlet for pettiness and satisfying personal grudges.

Just saying.

Also, here is the list of reasons as to why this site partly exists in the first place.

-The attempted unilateral closure of the gutter.
-The decision to exclude regular moderators from participation in that decision.
-The exodus of numerous staff members during Rian/Viper/Sene's tenure as admin, accompanied by complaints of inappropriate behavior that the staff failed to resolve without external pressure.
-The regular moderator veto of the summit accountability measures despite a 2/3
majority of the userbase in favor, and the continuing lack of any suitable mechanism to replace them.
-The attempted institution (yet again) of new rules in WCT, and the ongoing lack of a resolution and confidence in the leadership.
-Questions regarding the handling of verbals and the rule against spam.
-The leaks of the Curse information and resulting fallout.


All on your watch Sene.

[PhantomS]

One would think you'd move on and try to focus your considerable resources on building your own welcoming & quality community to rival MTGS, instead of making this a site an outlet for pettiness and satisfying personal grudges.

Just saying.

Because this post is a prime example of taking the high road?

[Col. Khaddafi]

Let's approach this from another angle.

Sene: lets imagine you guys could go back in time. Lets also assume that no matter what you could do, information about the sale would inevitably leak to the public. To ease up things, lets get my case out of the way: The internet Satan is still banned at the beginning of this ordeal.

With this scenario at hand, do you think the iridium could have done something differently? anything?

[Kaitscralt]

Lets approach this from an angle wherein everyone is unbanned

[Pendulum]

Keep it to the original. With Scumbag banned there's proof of an alpha leak.

[Blackhound]

Question for Nai if you are reading this, (doubt ill get an answer but hey-ho)

Knowing that there was someone leaking shit storm worthy information from the mod lounge (such as the original curse leak sent to N_S) Why on earth did you decide to post about curse asking you to lie ? I mean was it not obvious that was going to get leaked as well ? would have thought you would have talked about it with the other admins offsite.


Also, can anyone confirm those posts from the GRRRRR thread are accurate, or are they just out of context ?

[Nai]

Question for Nai, (doubt ill get an answer but hey-ho)

Knowing that there was someone leaking shit storm worthy information from the mod lounge (such as the original curse leak sent to N_S) Why on earth did you decide to post about curse asking you to lie ? I mean was it not obvious that was going to get leaked as well ? would have thought you would have talked about it with the other admins offsite.


Also, can anyone confirm those posts from the GRRRRR thread are accurate, or are they just out of context ?

You asked, I'll answer.

The admins spoke about it in the admin lounge for quite some time, but we never got further than 'we don't want to go back on our word, and we're not going to lie about this'. After about three days
or so, we dropped it down to the globals and talked about it for a week, but we kept around the same problem. The thought came up that we should drop it down to the local mods, since we had Gutter regulars in there that might have better ideas. There was a short discussion concerning the leak, but we decided it was better to have information leaked than it was to simply close the Gutter because the upper staff couldn't think of anything better.

[Blackhound]

Why thank you for the answer.

Seems like you were in a no win situation there.

Edit:

Did the disscusion get dropped down to the local mods ?

[Nai]

We saw it for the no-win situation, but we were trying to find a way to win anyways. That's why we didn't immediately close the gutter or act on it in any way, we tried to find some other solution.

And yes, it was dropped down to the local mods. In fact, if you look at the opening post of this thread, that first quote from me is the original post of that very discussion.

[Captain Murphy]

So was the leak when you dropped it to globals or when it was all staff?

[Nai]

So was the leak when you dropped it to globals or when it was all staff?

The leak occurred, from what we can tell, about 12 hours after we dropped it to locals. It was with the globals for roughly a week before we dropped it to locals.

[Pendulum]

What conclusions did you reach with that information?

[Nai]

What conclusions did you reach with that information?

This has all been outlined on the 'Salvation dramathreads, so I'm not sure why we're rehashing every last post here.

Basically, we sat down and spent roughly 12 hours trying to figure things out. It got increasingly frustrating. At one point, all of the admins (talking in AIM at the same time to try to come up with ideas faster) decided that we weren't going to go back on our word not to close the Gutter and, further, had no intention of lying to the userbase. We posted as much in the thread and declared we would step down rather than have that happen.

Eventually someone had the idea to simply ask Curse if we could get a reprieve. They said yes, and told us that we had
misunderstood the business relationship and how necessary it was to follow those orders.

But by the time we got this response, the leak had happened.

[Col. Khaddafi]

This has all been outlined on the 'Salvation dramathreads, so I'm not sure why we're rehashing every last post here.

Well you see, there is this intrinsic difference in that those who have been left without a voice in your site can provide their side of the argument at freedom here. I think this makes the conversations much richer no?

Also, I don't see why you guys are being so coy about this leak stuff since it is public knowledge that you were the leak. After you made that mod lounge post (which is up for vote in this thread's OP btw), you contacted GR on AIM and tasked him with spilling the beans on the Sale Curse to kpaca and Kijin ASAP because you weren't feeling like doing it yourself, GR got ahold of kpaca but not kijin, so kpaca
decided to confront the staff about this information in the Gutter-Staff pegging chamber, getting himself banned in the process, and then contacted kijin about the sale by AIM, after which kijin got himself banned too.

At the very most you could play on the "misunderstanding" card for explaining the wipeout of one entire subforum of MTGS, but putting the blame in some "unknown" leak that occurred during these "dramatic" 12 hours seems disingenuous IMO.

You were the leak.

[Col. Khaddafi]

See Nai? Thats an example of a post who isn't a rehash of a Salvation dramathread.

[Pendulum]

One of the leaks, Scumbag, one of.

[Col. Khaddafi]

Yes, true, they are manyfold. I stand corrected

[Nai]

Except that's actually not how it happened.

When it was said that we may have to close the Gutter, GR asked me if he could be the one to tell them. I asked him to contact me on AIM so we could discuss it. I told him that I intended to talk to Kpaca and Kijin about it. He wanted to do it, so I gave him the go ahead. He asked me for a time frame, and I told him 'as soon as possible'. But this was when we were still under the gag order from Curse about the deal AND about saying it was then, so I asked him to keep it under wraps.

With GR's permission, I can post the log in its entirety right here.

[Col. Khaddafi]

GR told me he wanted to stay clear from the Razzies (for conflict of interest), so maybe you can contact him by PM, I don't think he will post here. Chatlogs are welcome in any case

[Nai]

Fine then. Apart from removing his actual AIM address from the log (in case of webcrawlers), this is the discussion we had that night.

Session Start (Teqoli:GR): Fri Sep 21 00:12:55 2012 -0500
[00:12] GR: Nai?
[00:12] Nai: Yeah.
[00:13] Nai: Here's the thing.
[00:13] Nai: On official channels.
[00:13] Nai: This can't be the way you want this to be.
[00:13] Nai: official channels.
[00:13] Nai: I intend to contact K&K via IM.
[00:14] GR: And tell them how things actually are?
[00:15] GR: If so, I'm fine with it.
[00:16] GR: Because this is basically what Scumbag was warning us about.
[00:17] Nai: More or less.
[00:17] Nai: But it's not our choice, the way he said it was.
[00:18] GR: Yeah, he as being fed strange info, apparently
[00:20] Nai: But yeah, this is out of our hands. We need to get this information to them... But not from us. And to keep it off the site.
[00:25] GR: OK. Do that. And as long as the
history of the Gutter can be accessed somehow, don't waist much time thinking about what will become of it.
[00:26] GR: The community is the people. It will find a way to move on.
[00:33] * Nai nods.
[01:21] Nai: So, uh...
[01:21] Nai: How are you going to do this?
[01:24] GR: Me? I thought you were haha.
[01:25] Nai: You asked O.o
[01:25] GR: I could do it on aim. I have their handles
[01:26] Nai: Might be an idea.
[01:28] GR: Yeah. That should be it. Non-official, off site and they didn't hear it from you.
[01:28] GR: You could always hint at the leak to do it.
[01:30] Nai: Let Kpaca and Kijin know the deal, not throught he site.
[01:30] Nai: Let them know we can't speak publicly about it, because it'd hurt our chance of keeping the site with people that actually know it.
[01:30] Nai: And that we're going to have to basically play Batman here.
[01:30] Nai: Be the bad guys so everyone has a good time.
[01:45] GR: Alright. I'll take care of it. Is there a time frame?
[01:51] Nai: Soon
as possible.
[01:52] GR: Got it. I'll be on it.
[01:55] Nai: Be safe about it. Don't leave evidence.
Session Close (GR): Fri Sep 21 04:33:55 2012 -0500

This was before it was brought up that we should talk to Curse, so the timing was bad. This is when we still were considering 'neutering' the Gutter by essentially making it a private clan. I wanted to talk to Kpaca and Kijin first, since they could tell me if directly killing it would be a better idea. GR asked if he could tell them, I asked him to contact me on AIM. This is the conversation that we had.

[Nai]

For the sake of completion, these are the mod lounge posts in question that precede that IM conversation. I'm sure you still have people in the lounge that can verify this:

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

Okay guys. We have [redacted]'s hail Mary. It's a good one. I'm combining it with mine.

Frankly, this situation sucks. And so I'm simply going to talk directly to Kpaca and Kijin and let them know that they have to close. I'm going to give them the option to close, be neutered, or do a new site. And just try to talk to them as best I can.

So, basically, I'm going to take the bullet. Does anyone have any better idea and/or argument before I go do this?

Originally posted by Gaeas Regent on MTGS

No, seriously. This time I ain't even mad. Last time I felt betrayed by people I trusted. This time I just feel sorry for you because you were put between a rock and a hard place.

nConstructive? Here's my suggestion: listen to [redacted]. Nuke it. I'd ask for said link to not lose the history. The Gutter was dead all along. Long live the Gutter.

Originally posted by Gaeas Regent on MTGS

Okay guys. We have [redacted]'s hail Mary. It's a good one. I'm combining it with mine.

Frankly, this situation sucks. And so I'm simply going to talk directly to Kpaca and Kijin and let them know that they have to close. I'm going to give them the option to close, be neutered, or do a new site. And just try to talk to them as best I can.

So, basically, I'm going to take the bullet. Does anyone have any better idea and/or argument before I go do this?

Let me tell them the truth. They already know about Curse anyway. Out of respect.

The 'hail mary' that's referred to in my uppermost post there was an idea to help you guys make your own site and move all the Gutter posts
over there. I thought this was a fantastic idea, and wanted to combine that with 'just be upfront and talk directly'.

I've removed the names of a few mods for confidentiality purposes.

[Pendulum]

Anyway, Nai, the reason I'm curious about these events and keep backtracking on them is because I'm trying to figure out their pattern. I'm hoping to avoid this sort of thing in the future, but it's not like there's an unsubscribe button.

[Kaitscralt]

That conversation is a very interesting read.

[Thrillho]

this thread isn't very funny for being in a humor subforum.

[Mogadishu Jones]

For the sake of completion, these are the mod lounge posts in question that precede that IM conversation. I'm sure you still have people in the lounge that can verify this:

Originally posted by Nai on MTGS

Okay guys. We have [redacted]'s hail Mary. It's a good one. I'm combining it with mine.

Frankly, this situation sucks. And so I'm simply going to talk directly to Kpaca and Kijin and let them know that they have to close. I'm going to give them the option to close, be neutered, or do a new site. And just try to talk to them as best I can.

So, basically, I'm going to take the bullet. Does anyone have any better idea and/or argument before I go do this?

Originally posted by Gaeas Regent on MTGS

No, seriously. This time I
ain't even mad. Last time I felt betrayed by people I trusted. This time I just feel sorry for you because you were put between a rock and a hard place.

Constructive? Here's my suggestion: listen to [redacted]. Nuke it. I'd ask for said link to not lose the history. The Gutter was dead all along. Long live the Gutter.

Originally posted by Gaeas Regent on MTGS

Okay guys. We have [redacted]'s hail Mary. It's a good one. I'm combining it with mine.

Frankly, this situation sucks. And so I'm simply going to talk directly to Kpaca and Kijin and let them know that they have to close. I'm going to give them the option to close, be neutered, or do a new site. And just try to talk to them as best I can.

So, basically, I'm going to take the bullet. Does anyone have any better idea and/or argument before I go do this?

Let me tell them the truth. They already know about Curse anyway. Out of respect.[/quote1:
d7oicm29]

The 'hail mary' that's referred to in my uppermost post there was an idea to help you guys make your own site and move all the Gutter posts over there. I thought this was a fantastic idea, and wanted to combine that with 'just be upfront and talk directly'.

I've removed the names of a few mods for confidentiality purposes.

Hahahahaha so you guys hairpin banned us all instead of "contacting kpaca and kijin directly".

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaahahahah

[Mogadishu Jones]

You are the fucking leak Nai, what a joke

[Thrillho]

well you see, it's easier to click through 8 things and delete numerous posts and thread than it is to double click a user's AIM name and type "hi"

[Thrillho]

it is also easier to do all of the former after pawning off the latter on someone under you than it is to be responsible for an inarguably important discussion that you need to have with a number of users holding a potentially volatile piece of information.

[Thrillho]

but i mean what's a long term gain over a possibly several hour long aim chat versus months of CI, helpdesk, and mod lounge posts and bannings and suspensions of a significant number of very active and well-known community members, not to mention continued volatility in the staff ranks and long-term harm between the user base and trusting of the staff?

sorry this post isn't very funny. i will try harder next post.

[Blackhound]

Well thanks for all that and your honesty Nai, but Thrillho does have a point though.

I suppose it was an unprecedented situation, I dunno.

[Kaitscralt]

If you were in the Gutter then sadly it was all very predictable and precedented

[Blackhound]

*bumping to ask if those GRRRRR thread posts are accurate*


Also random trvia, last year there were about 23 pages worth of suspensions/bannings .... this year (which we are not quite at the end of) there are about 47 pages of suspensions bannings. Now granted there are more users this year than last year that still should not justify double the amount of pages. Any idea as to why this is ?



http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost ... stcount=46

[Thrillho]

IT IS THE END OF DAYS *WOOOOOOO~OOOOOOOOO*

[Second Harkius]

When admins who banned a bunch of users come and register on a new forum founded by those users with the intentions to justify their actions to said users, it really makes you wonder if those admins needed those users more than those users ever needed them. I mean, normally when people chase demons away they don't go hunting for those same demons immediately after.

[Blackhound]

Also (and im going to be blunt here) this post from ER was full of shit, why didnt he just drop the hammer and say "yes one of our mods went off in the deep end"


Highroller, I think those two posts were still an issue, and I would like to request that you be more careful in your future posts since I believe those were still problematic posts. I believe they were unproductively sensationalist, and largely unfounded. That being said, I find your argument convincing that your posts were your honest opinion and made based off allegations within the thread. While still borderline, I think your appeal appropriately moves them outside of what is actionable. Accordingly your appeal is granted.

Infraction Overturned.

Thank you for your patience and understanding through this process.