Open Site Blathering (formerly Advice from iridium ITT)

[NoHomers]

I'm mostly here to figure out what's happening, really, having a bunch of pissed users on their own forums doesn't really make sense and we can probably fix it, we'll just have to take it one step at a time and see what we can do.

Are you going to do anything about Teia? Unless you like having mods on staff who think the users should eat a bag of dicks.

[Mogadishu Jones]

I'm the one who said that I had sources inside Curse, and I still do. I did not, however, mention anything about MMO-Champion, because I am aware Curse owns MMOC. There are other sources who would have loved the story, though, that I write for. In fact, I told two of them to walkaway because I wasn't going to cause more drama over this unless it was warranted.

Strike 1.

Wait. Did you just give me... a strike? Huh, okay I guess?

You do realize that I'm on the side of people who actually knew what's going on right? You do realize that whenever you came up in
public with "They're going to fire everyone!" I knew it was total bullshit? I'm going to quote you on the MMO-Champion stuff.

As I promised Rascals, the information N_S provided will remain safe in my inbox and will not see the light of day on these forums, provided the staff remains honest and true to the userbase. Don't **** with us on this one, because this does affect us. And believe me, there is NOTHING a company like Curse wants to see less than a bunch of pissed-off forumgoers running to the blogs and presses to bitch about this. Blogs such as MMO-Champion would love a story like this, and I don't want to see that happen.

If it comes down to it, I will provide a link to my story if and when I write it up.

I'm going to make it extremely clear, I'm here to try to fix the problem if there is one. I'm not here to empower you by paying attention to random threats, right now there's two possibilities.

• n
• You're talking to someone random at Curse who's bullshiting you, and honestly I don't see how you could have gotten something that wrong from someone on our side. We really didn't have a lot of people involved in the deal because of how uncertain it was.
• You don't have anything and you're just trying to grab attention.

I'm not really here to debate whether or not your threats make sense, I just don't care. If you want to go forward with fixing the community, jump in, if you want to be a sad little grinch and just enjoy the trolling and hating, well, you'll probably have someone else to play with.

For now, I'll just assume that this is what happens at three strikes, maybe you should get some inspiration out of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGwQqxDWE2M

Please ignore Fahey his only leg in the actual
gutter/staff debacle is he is drawn to drama like a moth to a fame and likes to bloviate.

i promise you e rest of us are laughing at "strikes"

[Mogadishu Jones]

I'm mostly here to figure out what's happening, really, having a bunch of pissed users on their own forums doesn't really make sense and we can probably fix it, we'll just have to take it one step at a time and see what we can do.

Are you going to do anything about Teia? Unless you like having mods on staff who think the users should eat a bag of dicks.

This is really not the place for petty grudges, go somewhere else to be counterproductive, especially if you have to pansy up and make a gimmick account.

Thanks in advance.

[Boubouille]

@Mogadishu Jones: If you guys want to compile list of usernames that needs to be reviewed, I'll go through it as soon as possible. If you want to send me a PM about it to not go all public about it, it's also fine, I'm sticking to this post for transparency purposes but I'm fine with whatever works for you. We're still reindexing the entire forums on the new search servers, will take a while but hey, we don't need a downtime for that.

@Col. Khaddafi: That's kind of my point, you don't know how the SQL DB of vB works. Asking for an export of posts like this is a giant pain, and still a huge privacy/security breach in my opinion. As for closing the Gutter, if my only plan was to close the Gutter I don't think I would be posting here to figure out what's going on. The situation has been frustrating on both sides, but if you want to work on a solution I'm up for it. That's about it.

@NoHomers: I don't know, it
would most likely depend on the size of the bag. No, seriously, I'll also look into it, but it's literally day 1 for me to try to catch up on everything so give it a little more time.

On a sidenote, I'd like to point out that I appreciate people trying to work with me on this, it's kind of good to move forward.

[Mogadishu Jones]

I'm not really here to debate specifics, mostly to protect people involved. I had serious threats of doxing too, Fahey is a borderline case because he never really had specifics, he just randomly threatens every now and then. But as I said, it's more than one person and I'm still trying to figure out the rights or wrong.

As for your ban, it will take a little more time to investigate, we shutdown the search servers for now to secure it and I like to go through stuff myself to make my own opinion. ^^

In what specific way did fahey personally threaten the staff as you said
in 250? You claimed it was his post where he said that he wouldn't release the information he had if the staff coroporated with him. That's patently false. Fahey never said "hurr durr if the staff don't do what I want I'll find them IRL"

You said :

1. Going to figure out who did what for now. The situation wasn't handled perfectly on the staff side, but I also saw pretty nasty things coming from the other sides, including personal threats and stuff like that. Getting both sides of the story is the only reason why I'm here, so as I said, work with me.

and then when asked to provide who was making person threats, you quoted Fahey saying that it was a random threat here :

I'm going to make it extremely clear, I'm here to try to fix the problem if there is one. I'm not here to empower you by paying attention to random threats, right now there's two possibilities.

You're talking to someone random at Curse who's bullshiting you, and
honestly I don't see how you could have gotten something that wrong from someone on our side. We really didn't have a lot of people involved in the deal because of how uncertain it was.
You don't have anything and you're just trying to grab attention.


I'm not really here to debate whether or not your threats make sense, I just don't care. If you want to go forward with fixing the community, jump in, if you want to be a sad little grinch and just enjoy the trolling and hating, well, you'll probably have someone else to play with.

what Fahey did in no way was a personal threat on anyone in the iridium.

I'm sorry that someone threatened to dox you or the other iridium, but it clearly wasn't Fahey.

Hey I'm sure this was your last post being argumentative for no reason other than to be antagonizing as well as your last post being counterproductive to discussions with mister bou, and I thank you for that.

Go be a
cone in another thread.

[Mogadishu Jones]

@Mogadishu Jones: If you guys want to compile list of usernames that needs to be reviewed, I'll go through it as soon as possible. If you want to send me a PM about it to not go all public about it, it's also fine, I'm sticking to this post for transparency purposes but I'm fine with whatever works for you. We're still reindexing the entire forums on the new search servers, will take a while but hey, we don't need a downtime for that.

@Col. Khaddafi: That's kind of my point, you don't know how the SQL DB of vB works. Asking for an export of posts like this is a giant pain, and still a huge privacy/security breach in my opinion. As for closing the Gutter, if my only plan was to close the Gutter I don't think I would be posting here to figure out whats going on. The situation has been frustrating on both sides, but if you want to work on a solution I'm up for it. That's about it.

@NoHomers: I don't know, it would most likely depend on the size of the bag. No, seriously, I'll also look into it, but it's literally day 1 for me to try to catch up on everything so give it a little more time.

On a sidenote, I'd like to point out that I appreciate people trying to work with me on this, it's kind of good to move forward.

I can't really speak to the complete reasons and justifications behind every ban, I can only say for certain my ban was unjust and implore you to investigate.

The other names that come to mind are Kijin, Madding, iamabadman, and shalako. Any others I cant really speak to.

[Mogadishu Jones]

And agreed it would be nice to move forward, we've been working on that for two years. Even if the gutter is never reopened thats irrelevant to the unjustness of this ban.

[Col. Khaddafi]

@Col. Khaddafi: That's kind of my point, you don't know how the SQL DB of vB works. Asking for an export of posts like this is a giant pain, and still a huge privacy/security breach in my opinion.

I will have to disagree on this. Obv I'm more well versed in phpbb3 (prefer it to vb, less SQL queries per page) but I took the care of investigating the vbulletin SQL database structure and I have a fairly good understanding to know that it isn't such a pain in the ass. Notice that all I asked in the past was the posts and threads SQL databases. I didn't even require a selection of the authors, even if it would just require some extra coding.

- I disagree about the privacy issues since as like I pointed out you can select the thread and post
filelds to dump so that it can match to what is displayed in the html for a regular user.

- About the technical hassle, I don't see what is the big deal neither and you will have to tell me specifically what exactly is so difficult about the operation (don't be scared about going to the technicalities ITT) or otherwise I can guide you into the process of dumping the relevant data step-by-step if you need some assistance.

At the end of the day, I still appreciate that you are taking the time to engage in dialogue, but do understand that we have been sugarcoated by smooth talkers like Nai over and over in the Gutter-Staff pegging chamber at MTGS without any real improvement of the situation (rather the contrary) so at the end of the day it is not words but instead actions (and concrete steps) that will have a chance at healing any rifts that the past/current MTGS administration created by their deceitful and unfaithful actions.

[iamabadman]

@Mogadishu Jones: If you guys want to compile list of usernames that needs to be reviewed, I'll go through it as soon as possible. If you want to send me a PM about it to not go all public about it, it's also fine, I'm sticking to this post for transparency purposes but I'm fine with whatever works for you. We're still reindexing the entire forums on the new search servers, will take a while but hey, we don't need a downtime for that.

@Col. Khaddafi: That's kind of my point, you don't know how the SQL DB of vB works. Asking for an export of posts like this is a giant pain,
and still a huge privacy/security breach in my opinion. As for closing the Gutter, if my only plan was to close the Gutter I don't think I would be posting here to figure out what's going on. The situation has been frustrating on both sides, but if you want to work on a solution I'm up for it. That's about it.

@NoHomers: I don't know, it would most likely depend on the size of the bag. No, seriously, I'll also look into it, but it's literally day 1 for me to try to catch up on everything so give it a little more time.

On a sidenote, I'd like to point out that I appreciate people trying to work with me on this, it's kind of good to move forward.

I can't really speak to the complete reasons and justifications behind every ban, I can only say for certain my ban was unjust and implore you to investigate.

The other names that come to mind are Kijin, Madding, iamabadman, and shalako. Any others I cant really speak to.

nitpick, i was only suspended. im
back to full posting now.

[Boubouille]

To be honest after going through a few things, I do think that some penalties might be harsh on the permban side, I have no fucking clues if it applies to anyone here and I'll go through individual cases asap, just give me a day or two and hopefully I'll start to understand things a little better. Just need to take them one at a time.

[Kaitscralt]

First step is mostly give me a list of usernames that needs their ban investigated and I'll look into it.

Hi Boubouille --

My name is Michael aka Kaitscralt aka Madding and I was a well-known, popular, and former staff member on Salvation. I was also a Gutter member who happened to speak my mind a lot about problems with the site and staff and also was not afraid to take digital bullets for my friends whenever the need arose. Most of my friends (and the most prolific Gutter members) had already been banned when I was kicked off Salvation. Myself and my girlfriend (Belza) were wrongly banned on MTGS following that initial cascade of Gutter bannings. At first I was banned with Kijin and N_S, but the administration knew the reason would not
hold (I had merely shared the SCG forum post about Curse buying MTGS), so they unbanned me until they could find a better reason. Later they accused me of using a gimmick account named Belza during an active suspension. Belza had been established for five years as my girlfriends account; previous (and more competent) administrators had cleared her account as a non-gimmick and allowed her to vote for me in contests, bump our trade thread, etc. She even still has the PM's saying she can do so in her inbox to this day. When she appealed the ban, Galspanic rudely spoke to her as if she were me and only repeated that it is OK for me to have a gimmick but that I can't evade a suspension. The appeal went nowhere (she doesn't care as Magic has not interested her for years; she only made a fleeting return to Salvation because I wouldn't stop bitching about the bannings). For some reason, as if being accused of having a gimmick that administration has said is not a gimmick was not bad enough, Galspanic also told
me (although he was talking to Belza) that I am a member named "Zombie Zach," who was an infamous gimmick of the non-Zombie Gutter's last days. I never used this account and Galspanic never provided me with any proof that I had.

All-in-all, Galspanic threw a bunch of nothing at me. He and his fellow staff-members have a lot to learn about IP's and proxies and stuff. They rely way too much on hearsay. It's not fair whatsoever. I would like to have my ban overturned, but after seeing how he handled my girlfriend Heather's appeal (as well as various Gutter members sharing their appeal frustrations here) I decided not to bother. Maybe you could help me out. Living with someone who posts on the same website has never been a bannable offense. And "Zombie Zach," hero he may be, has never been me.

The only reason I want to go back to Salvation is because I was part of a hidden sub-forum in the Standard area where I liked to brew with some friends who were actually good at Magic, as
well as utilizing the aforementioned Trading sub-forum (I have over 50 positive transactions with the community in my feedback, and no negative). I am done with the politics there and want nothing to do with interacting with the moderators.

I've brought a lot to the site over the years (organized tournaments, named sub-forums, become a competitive voice and an MTGO presence); I feel an unbanning is warranted.

Thank you.

[Kaitscralt]

(the problem of course is that your new underlings will write 10k word essay-posts to silver-tongue their way around anything we say, without them actually saying anything at all).

[Boubouille]

Once again, if I wanted a 10k words essay on their opinion only, I wouldn't be here.

Also, 10k words essay would be a terrible way to reach me to be honest.

[Kaitscralt]

Well, your presence is appreciated, if nothing else.

[Shalako]

I was banned unfairly and i've been avoiding my Appeal thread because of this:


Quote of Nai saying

And, Shalako, frankly, I don't trust you. I'm asking for nothing more than the timestamp on that post. Every post you make that refuses to give me something that simple is another post that reduces my trust in you.

Quote of Nai saying

Can you take a screenshot that shows an entire page, please? I'd like to see the post-date and the surrounding posts.

However, seeing the entire page would make your claim more believable, because I'd be able to see that this post by N_S has to do with THIS issue, not some other random issue.

Without the information i'm asking for, that screenshot does very little to prove you innocent. I can't see the source post, I can't see the surrounding posts. I also can'
t see when it was posted. I can't verify that it's real at all.

[( G_R )]

Hey Boub. I was a mod on your brand new site during part of this debacle. I got kicked out for trying to tell other staff members what they were doing wrong and because I am an administrator of this site. I don't want back in, merci. There's some people you should kick out though. You should be able to figure it out for yourself.

[Yannaria]

I'm more than willing to work with this guy on how we can at least attempt to mend the relationship between the gutter and the sally staff, but I don't like how he came in here, said that there were personal threats from both sides (implying that our group was making threats) then cited Fahey as an aggressor. 1. Fahey didn't make personal attacks and 2. he isn't a member of the gutter. I'm asking Bou to back up his claims of personal attacks within his power, not the targets just who threatened the staff personally, not in the way that Fahey did.
I don't know how much he's been caught up with this entire situation, but we got really burned in the pegging chamber and I'd rather not be burned by misinformation again.

I like to think that Bou's heart is in the right place, and we're trying to mend the relationship and he really wants to help us, but I'd rather not have it insinuated that we were making personal threats
against staff members when it simply isn't true. Please let me know if I've misinterruprted what you originally said Bou


That said, thank you for taking your time to review these bannings and your outreach which so far appears better than the original staff.

[Blackhound]

Boubouille, as mentioned earlier I am not a member of the gutter, and I hope the banned gutter members dont mind me speaking up for them.

There are members here that gave a damn about salvation, some of them used to be mods (including a guy who spent 7!!! years as a mod, and another guy who while was not on staff for long he did write this up which is still used today http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=411244


The way I see it while the sale was in negotiation the site seemed to be in a state of limbo, this seem to cause some unavoidble problems, (many people complaining, bannings, I personally decided to jump ship because of the whole watercooler talk decable, at one point Sene stepped down from staff because he was frustrated with a bunch of things.)

As for what these members said in the gutter,
most of it was "dark humour" and should not be taken as threats or whatever (as explained here) http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost ... tcount=178

[Blackhound]

@GR: That's what I want to hear. The thing with the "MTGS bashing", though, ill-intended or not, is that I think excessive venting both sets the tone for the forum + people you want to attract to the forum are likely to see it like I said in the OP (as pettiness & grudges).

@Madding:
1) Eh. Here's an issue I have with many of these discussions. You don't seem to see where you screwed up during all of this. For example, N_S' initial trolling spree that lead to basically all of this (talks about a ban -> we all decided against it, but it got leaked -> N_S posts about Curse in what we see as an act of retribution for infractions -> N_S gets banned); kpaca's posts about Curse in Pegs; Kijin's, badguys, Madding'
s threads about Curse; Shalako giving his gimmick to banned Gutter members; poggydude using Hard Gay to troll and spam; Yanni & Madding evading their suspensions. I think that we could and should have acted differently when we had the knowledge that you guys sat on this information, for example, but you guys could also have tried to talk with us rather than "blowing up".

2) That's fair enough, and I understand venting. I actually don't really mind if you bash me behind my back as much as you feel like. But like I said, if you want to go beyond a "Gutter 2" and get a real site, you really gotta be about Magic the Gathering and not Magic the Gathering Salvation.

3) I don't think that's where we are. I just think there is hostility between the two sites, and that the leaks we have on staff are connected with this place. It's not actually that bad, as long as it's not used to hurt people - like rianalnn. That PM to him was really not nice. I don't
know who was behind it, but if you're reading this and are an active user of this site, there's "having a good time" and then there's "having a good time at others' expense".

4) I think all the bans were correct. Unbanning is a matter of leniency, not merit, in my opinion. I think there were a few things we handled poorly. But that doesn't necessarily excuse the actions taken.

5) I don't

And yeah, I guess I realize that these posts of mine here are pretty serious and lame. But eh, I'm just doing what I can to explain my side here. Take it or leave it, I suppose.

I am curious now, did you come here to post this nearly 2 weeks ago because you knew that curse were definatly taking over, forgive my scepticism.

[Shalako]

The Personal Threats make sense for Boub(can I call you this? It's far easier to type.) to be concerned about because he only knows what The Staff has told him.(and I assume the Mod Lounge Consultant.)

What happened is that a Joke was hugely blown out of proportion by people who weren't involved in the conversation or the context in anyway.

It's tough not to be hugely Cynical because of the constant lies by the Staff so if you have any kind of Olive Branch you could offer to show that you aren't just jerking our chain it would be greatly appreciated.

[Boubouille]

I don't think the team knew about it back then, to be honest, I'm not really sure how badly it matters as long as someone comes forward to fix things.

I'm having the team build up a file with a recap of the situation for everyone right now, hopefully I'll have a bunch of answers to give people soon. Will definitely take a little time, you guys have super complicated dramas.

As for the personal threat things, it's really just a matter of not having everything in hand and putting people I don't know at risk. I saw random threats in PMs, random threats in ban appeals, random posts from the mod lounge with "I KNOW THINGS! I HAVE ACCESS TO THINGS!", etc... I have no idea how much of it is bullshit, but I'm not going to put other people on the frontline.

I don't think the staff was "lying" to you for the record,
it's just a pretty hard situation to manage for them without full power over the website, etc... I'm not saying that I agree with everything that was done either, as a clear example I don't agree with the fact that people get permbanned for ban evading on an alt account (my policy for that is usually ban the alt and potentially infract the main account once more, but permban seems overkill).

To be honest, trying to figure out what happened is made a lot more complicated by the fact that you guys share accounts like hell.

[Shalako]

Oh no they were lying to us.

They admitted it.

If you want to disagree on what lying means I understand though as that's a valid Idea.

And if you need anything put in your hand just ask.(double entendre! )

[Boubouille]

... you're dirty. And if you have examples, go for it.

[Shalako]

I thought you wanted to know what happened.

Do you want an Epic Poem from my point of view?

Do you have specific questions?

Do you have specific concerns you would like addressed?

[Boubouille]

You said that admins lied and admitted it, got more details on that?

[Mogadishu Jones]

I'm more than willing to work with this guy on how we can at least attempt to mend the relationship between the gutter and the sally staff, but I don't like how he came in here, said that there were personal threats from both sides (implying that our group was making threats) then cited Fahey as an aggressor. 1. Fahey didn't make personal attacks and 2. he isn't a member of the gutter. I'm asking Bou to back up his claims of personal attacks within his power, not the targets just who threatened the staff personally, not in the way that Fahey did.
I don't know how much he's been caught up with this entire situation, but we got really burned in the pegging chamber and I'd rather not be burned by misinformation again.

I like to think that Bou's heart is in
the right place, and we're trying to mend the relationship and he really wants to help us, but I'd rather not have it insinuated that we were making personal threats against staff members when it simply isn't true. Please let me know if I've misinterruprted what you originally said Bou


That said, thank you for taking your time to review these bannings and your outreach which so far appears better than the original staff.

We see what youre asking. Please refrain and kindly stfu, thanks in advance.

[Mogadishu Jones]

Like bouboille, im trying to save you a headache. Just ignore Yanni and probably Fahey as well itt.

[Thrillho]

Thanks for having an open discussion with us, Boubouille. I hope we're not the pack of raving mongrels we were talked up to being. I'd like to second the list posted by Mogadishu Jones:

I can't really speak to the complete reasons and justifications behind every ban, I can only say for certain my ban was unjust and implore you to investigate.

The other names that come to mind are Kijin, Madding, iamabadman, and shalako. Any others I cant really speak to.

My ban was under Kijin. I was under "probation" for having voted in a poll regarding Gutter talks and whether or not the subforum would be closed while suspended, which I didn't realize was an issue until it was raised a second time for a second vote and Nai posted
that suspended users would possibly be given a workaround to vote through because voting while suspended wasn't allowed. It was during this time a lot of staff were suspending Gutter users fairly liberally. I was banned for posting a link to a SCG thread and saying this potentially boded poorly for the forums because of how hard staff were coming down on the forums and its rules coincidentally before the purchase was supposed to transpire. I admit this is doomsaying on my part, but it is also a community whose primary traffic is driven by rumors and hearsay (and also given the fact that two of my closest friends on the forum had essentially been banned for posting your company name/a link to your website was a bit of ill-will staff side that set me off).

I believe my name was also tied to gimmick-related bans after the mass bannings, however I don't believe I posted under any gimmicks while banned (I think there is one exception for a Rumor Mill post with the gimmick Hard Gay in the Commander's Arsenal
thread).

This hopefully offers you better context over what happened and should line up pretty well with the current staff dossier on me, albeit from my perspective rather than from the perspective of people who saw fit to ban me, which would arguably cast me in a worse light than I cast myself and situations I was handed.

[Kaitscralt]

It should be noted that Kijin was banned for posting the same thing that I was later unbanned for posting. Though I was eventually rebanned for a different reason (see above) there is no reason that Kijin should not have been unbanned when I was.

[ExarionUniverse1]

Hey Boub. I was a mod on your brand new site during part of this debacle. I got kicked out for trying to tell other staff members what they were doing wrong and because I am an administrator of this site. I don't want back in, merci. There's some people you should kick out though. You should be able to figure it out for yourself.

I can confirm that Galspanic was more than happy to fire GR Boubouille.

Also I can assist in compiling a list since I am independent of both sides ( own my own website).


Also , I tried to talking to staff about this before aimed Nai on Oct 26th :


f the admins of MTGS would agree to this , I am willing to host a public
meeting on my website between both sides on the conflict , the staff and the banned members to see if a sort of reconciliation can be made , and the case can be closed? Let me know the admin's /staff views on this if you can
- Onar



Nai didn't answer but presumably passed this to ER and Meggiado ( who has promissed to ban all he sees instrumental in the leak publicly.


A couple days after this Galspanic invited all banned members back , when they tried to do so they were banned again proven by users mtg community the admin here and unbanned asian picasso (poggydude) among others.

[Kaitscralt]

Onar is also hiring staff for his website if you are interested Boub

[FaheyUSMC]

I'm more than willing to work with this guy on how we can at least attempt to mend the relationship between the gutter and the sally staff, but I don't like how he came in here, said that there were personal threats from both sides (implying that our group was making threats) then cited Fahey as an aggressor. 1. Fahey didn't make personal attacks and 2. he isn't a member of the gutter. I'm asking Bou to back up his claims of personal attacks within his power, not the targets just who threatened the staff personally, not in the way that Fahey did.
I don't know how much he's been caught up with this entire situation, but we got really burned in the pegging chamber and I'd rather not be burned by misinformation again.

I like to think that Bou's heart is
in the right place, and we're trying to mend the relationship and he really wants to help us, but I'd rather not have it insinuated that we were making personal threats against staff members when it simply isn't true. Please let me know if I've misinterruprted what you originally said Bou


That said, thank you for taking your time to review these bannings and your outreach which so far appears better than the original staff.

To be fair, if he knows anything about the United States Marine Corps, it's that we are aggressive. That's probably why he's citing me, because I'm an aggressive fellow.

[FaheyUSMC]

Like bouboille, im trying to save you a headache. Just ignore Yanni and probably Fahey as well itt.

You seem pretty upset.

[ExarionUniverse1]

I'm more than willing to work with this guy on how we can at least attempt to mend the relationship between the gutter and the sally staff, but I don't like how he came in here, said that there were personal threats from both sides (implying that our group was making threats) then cited Fahey as an aggressor. 1. Fahey didn't make personal attacks and 2. he isn't a member of the gutter. I'm asking Bou to back up his claims of personal attacks within his power, not the targets just who threatened the staff personally, not in the way that Fahey did.
I don't know how much he's been caught up
with this entire situation, but we got really burned in the pegging chamber and I'd rather not be burned by misinformation again.

I like to think that Bou's heart is in the right place, and we're trying to mend the relationship and he really wants to help us, but I'd rather not have it insinuated that we were making personal threats against staff members when it simply isn't true. Please let me know if I've misinterruprted what you originally said Bou


That said, thank you for taking your time to review these bannings and your outreach which so far appears better than the original staff.

To be fair, if he knows anything about the United States Marine Corps, it's that we are aggressive. That's probably why he's citing me, because I'm an aggressive fellow.

aggressive but kindhearted . Boubouille, Fahey can come hotheaded at times but he has MTGS best interests at heart.

[Azrael]

Hello, Boubouille, I'm sure most everyone here appreciates the courtesy and the chance for an open dialogue.

I'm one of the administrators on this site, a retired administrator on MTGS, and I remain a member in good standing. I've maintained a good relationship with many of my former colleagues on staff, and I've frequently acted as a liaison between the two groups. Throughout the unfortunate events of the past year, there has been a great deal of distrust and hyperbole from both sides of the debate, as I'm sure you're aware.

The four current administrators, particularly Galspanic, have been fairly reasonable, accommodating, and professional, and by MTGS standards I would say that they are some of the better personnel that the site has had. However, there has been a great deal of personnel turnover prior to their tenure, and prior to their promotions there has been a long history of administrators and moderators with
a fairly high-handed and rigid approach to leadership. The gutterites, in turn, frequently protested against that leadership - often with civility, sometimes not. Over time, the site gradually moved towards a more democratic style of leadership, partly as a result of the gutter's relentless griping, and for a time the two groups were getting along very nicely indeed. Many gutterites also served as well-respected staff members at that time. However, around the time of the first unilateral step towards closure of the gutter, reneging on the promises of more tolerant administrators, a wave of personnel resigned or was terminated, followed by the wave of bannings, and it's safe to say that civility has largely gone out the window in favor of a simmering resentment.

The staff, for its part, has very understandably had trouble engaging in a reasonable dialogue with the gutterites in light of all the vitriol and consistent (although understandable) cynicism that's being hurled at them. They've become very
sensitive and weary of criticism, and aside from a few encouraging exceptions, the staff and especially the lower tiers of moderators have been reluctant to openly discuss their negative views of the gutter in public settings. Essentially, they think that the atmosphere of the gutter, and the gutterites, are rude, hostile, and in very poor taste, and many of them have wanted to put a torch to it for years. Many gutterites, in turn, think many members of the staff are high-handed, rigid, unreasonable idiots.

Despite that, to get to the bottom of the mess, I think it would be useful to have a handful of the more cool-headed representatives from both parties jointly discuss the issues. It's been a useful tool towards cutting to the heart of matters on several occasions in the recent past.

If I were to give a cliff-notes summary of the bannings of most of the notable members of the gutter community, it would be that a few of them received misinformation that caused them to give up on working things out
with the staff and committed suicide by banning. Others were caught in the crossfire or caught up in the strong feelings created by that situation. In the aftermath, various members have been unbanned, but the staff trusts the gutterites to play nice and behave just about as much as the gutterites trust the staff not to screw them over once again.

Absent joint discussions, I can assure you that the staff's reaction to unbanning Col. Khaddafi/N_S, Thrillho/Kijin, Mogadishu Jones, and others will be negative, and probably present a fairly one-dimensional view of who was at fault in the situation.

[Mogadishu Jones]

Like bouboille, im trying to save you a headache. Just ignore Yanni and probably Fahey as well itt.

You seem pretty upset.

Im done dealing with people who just want to incite drama. Go find that somewhere else please. Some of us have been at this near a year, and I for one would appreciate it if you would kindly take your crusader attacks on mtgstaff and Internet toughguy act elsewhere.

Thanks again.

[Mogadishu Jones]

People who have no stake other than their own personal boredom in this matter and this should kindly spend their Internet boredom elsewhere than this thread (really, use any other thread on this site, hell, make a new thread!):

Exarionuniverse
Faheyusmc
Pendulum

Thanks for your help guys, we can speak for ourselves now.

[Mogadishu Jones]

Az I'm sorry but they have not been fairly reasonable nor accommodating in the slightest. It's starting to grate on me that you trumpet that time and time again tbh.

[FaheyUSMC]

Like bouboille, im trying to save you a headache. Just ignore Yanni and probably Fahey as well itt.

You seem pretty upset.

Im done dealing with people who just want to incite drama. Go find that somewhere else please. Some of us have been at this near a year, and I for one would appreciate it if you would kindly take your crusader attacks on mtgstaff and Internet toughguy act elsewhere.


Thanks again.

You act like we incite drama, and yet...I can't help but notice that all you do is bitch, moan, and complain. Both RussianAlara and myself have reasons as to why we are even here. IT isn't because we want to incite drama. The reason we are here is because unlike you,we aren't interested in pointing out every fucking flaw that's going on. I could point out how much of a bitch you are as a person, but given the fact that you seem to think you're never wrong, it's be fruitless.

The ones hindering this entire thing are you and people like you. How about you let people with a bit of diplomacy handle it. Maybe we'll even get your dumb ass back on Sally.

[Checkbox]

No, actually Fahey, you are the one talking about strikes and making vague threats here and there in chats and threads all over the place and acting like you are, like Jones said, an "internet tough guy". It was kind of interesting at first, when we thought you might actually have something, but the trope is old, and we all would kindly like it if you would cure your internet boredom elsewhere than this thread.