Moral corruption and malicious attacks - the soap opera

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 1:34 pm

Hoi. Time for a new lame thread by yours truly.

There are (quite) a few things I want to try and clear up about the summer drama (or winter, as we call it), and I want to talk about it in case it is possible to reach some kind of understanding. I'll try to summarize things from my perspective.

How it started
I think discussion slowly started back in April, when some guy whose name I don't remember contacted the admins and asked to have his account deleted. He'd joined the Gutter, hadn't posted, but felt harassed enough by what was said in there that he wanted to leave the site. This was hot on the heels of a long CI discussion about cyberbullying, and I guess we were like "wait a minute, isn't all of this cyberbullying?". A disproportionate amount of issues stemmed from the Gutter, considering the number of members there. So why
are we keeping it, anyway? Almost all previous administrations had wanted to close it down, but didn't, presumably because they were afraid to do it. We wouldn't be like that. We were going to get rid of the cancer, finally.

Yeah.

So the discussion lasted for two months. Some of us were active and posting, some of us needed to be dragged in to post our "

yeah I guess". We also decided to not drop it down to Mod Lounge level, or to the Pegging chamber. We were afraid of leaks and bullshit. One week before the thread was going up we felt like geniuses because it hadn't been leaked. One week after the thread went up I posted a huge apology thread in the Mod Lounge. Heh.

TBCITE
So the announcement is posted, and the great MTGS drama of 2012 has officially started. Conveniently enough, I suppose, I had to duck away almost immediately due to pretty serious
IRL issues, and when I got back, the thread was already 1k+ posts big. I start reading a bunch of posts, and I realize where we very obviously went wrong. The Gutter is primarily a community, not a trololo central, and it was the primary social space on the internet for many users that we were taking away without offering a realistic alternative. I guess I turned around pretty quickly, and started hinting in the various mod lounges that we should seriously consider a compromise.

"Alternative solutions to closing the Gutter"
Interesting, huh, how this probably led to way more issues than had we just said "no, we're closing it, end of story". But I can be a fairly naïve guy from time to time, and I truly believed that staff and Gutter could reach an agreement. Problem was, of course, that we entered these discussions (after a lot of fights within the staff) without actually having made up our mind. I wanted something (IIRC, no flaming, guttermods as staff, and
more information to new members), other staffers wanted more. There were a lot of conflicting messages that, I suppose, made you guys think we were lying and/or playing with you. We had lots and lots of discussions in the Mod Lounge, with each mod having their own unique belief about how to proceed, and at no levels within the staff could we really... agree. So we spent a long time discussing furiously in the ML, and I suppose you felt you were just kinda hanging there.

There was also the fact that we had a bunch of other drama happening at the same time. I don't think the Mod Lounge had ever been as active as it was during July this year. It was drama everywhere, and it pretty much sucked ass! I wanted to resign many times, but in my naïvety I thought we'd be done soon, just had to keep on trucking a little bit more.

So yeah, we had a ~800 post ML thread with furious discussion (in addition to a ~650 post global lounge thread), plus a bunch of other smaller ones, devoted to discussion about the
gutter, where we were, what we wanted, solutions, demands... I don't think we ever managed to agree. Especially on stuff like slurs. So we didn't get moving. This was our, no, my fault, for starting discussions before we, as a staff, had even made up our minds about what we wanted in the first place. I suppose the "negotiations" were doomed to fail, but it wasn't from lack of trying in my case - I'm pretty sure I put multiple hundreds of hours into the Gutter situation alone, bitching with other staff, posting long, annoying posts, and venting with those who were "on my side".

That said, it wasn't made any easier for us either. We were constantly shit on, people were negative, sarcastic, unpleasant, really hard to deal with. Many staffers were sympathetic during TBCITE, but turned around during pegs negotiations due to the attitude there and elsewhere. It was draining, and my patience obviously disappears steady and surely when repeatedly told I'm morally
corrupt and the like, while at the same time I'm continuously hearing from many staff that I'm playing favorites with the Gutter. Also, an inherent problem with the Gutter can often be, at least from our perspective, the group think that goes on. If a group of friends convinces each other that X is true, it's pretty hard to have a discussion about it.

( N_S )' suspension
So Scumbag got suspended for posting an IM from kpaca (who was suspended) looking like this: "Harkius, the staff-sponsored troll". If this was hotly contested by the gutter, it was no less controversial in the Mod Lounge. It took place across multiple threads, and as usual, we couldn't agree. I personally thought it was a really innocuous post and that while it technically broke the rule, the penalty should match the crime. Many agreed with this PoV, or thought it didn't break the rule at all, while others argued that the rules said X, and we shouldn't exercise favoritism just because this is a loud
Gutter member. The vote was pretty close to tied, but I argued that in the case of a staff that doesn't make up its mind, the ruling should favor the user, who is the one to face a tangible penalty after all. This only sparked more discussion, and Scumbag served his suspension (though only one week, despite it being his second suspension). Only a couple of weeks later did we finally reduce the suspension to an infraction, but I don't know if anyone got to know that, and obviously the damage was done already.

Kijin & kpaca's probations

Here's the OP of the thread in question, started by me, titled "Kijin's Suspension Evasion, Episode II"

Some agreed with me, some thought we should ban, like the rules say. In yet another case, it was a clash between the "penalty should match the crime" people and the "we should enforce our rules consistently" people, and we literally could not agree with those on the other side at all. In the end, we figured that a compromise between the two would be the only way forward, so we decided to place Kijin on probation. Some of us thought it was an extraordinarily harsh penalty, others thought it was playing favorites to not ban. But we could accept the idea of a compromise. Then it was revealed
that kpaca (who told this to Nai, actually) had done the same and voted with a gimmick on a CI poll, so it was decided to give kpaca the same penalty as Kijin.

( N_S )' ban
Fast forward a week or so, and we have a situation where, from our point of view, Scumbag was trolling CI pretty relentlessly, and was posting in the Gutter to boast about his trolling and encouraged others to do the same. This was a pretty big problem in our eyes, and was making the Gutter the exact thing it shouldn't be (a troll central). Rather than penalizing the entire Gutter for this kind of troublemaking, we were talking about what to do with Scumbag. Banning was indeed brought up as a possibility in the Global Lounge, but it was abandoned rather quickly. After discussion between the admins, we decided to just infract the posts in question.

Scumbag, however, had somehow heard that we were discussing whether or not to ban him only that he was either told, or interpreted it as us scheming our way into getting him
banned. As I understand it (I could be wrong - hey, that is basically the point of this thread, I want to know this stuff), Scumbag decided to post the Curse information he'd been withholding because he thought he was about to get banned anyway. From our perspective, Scumbag was posting this as a retaliation to the two infractions I had just given him. This was a friggin big deal for the site (much bigger than the closure of a random club house, or honestly anything else that had happened to the site since January 2005), and probably the most significant leak ever, and because it was done in retaliatory fashion (again, the way we saw it), and because of all the trouble Scumbag had caused recently, we decided to go with the ban. There was maybe one staff member who disagreed, I think.

kpaca and Kijin's bans
This one started with the message from Fabien telling us to shut Gutter down but not mention curse. Us, not realizing that this was a casual, half-baked suggestion
and not official in any way, started going all panic-mode. The thread you're all aware of due to the leaks appeared, and we were like what do, what do. After thinking about it for a while, I posted (09-21-2012, 10:47 AM):

Later (09-21-2012, 04:27 PM), I was able to post this:

But... by this point, kpaca had already been told that we might have to close the Gutter anyway. Mad Sene (post-stepping down) described is as such (because I was very much mad at this point, which was the primary reason why I resigned):

Originally posted by Sene on MTGS

The only thing kpaca did was ask, in an area only Gutter and mods can see, if the Gutter would be kept in the loop about the sale because we already knew about it AND we are the one area that has the most to lose.

He got banned
for that.
Woah now. What he did was more than that. I don't have access to the forum and the deleted posts anymore, but I happened to screenshot it for another purpose. Post 1:
http://www.curse.com/

@The Staff: put your money where your mouth is and be straight with us this time you secret squirrel ****s.
When I saw this post (less than a minute after it was posted), I deleted it and immediately PM'd kpaca to stop what he was doing because all he was building on was assumptions (the assumption that Gutter would be closed due to Curse, specifically), and that this was hush-hush. But kpaca re-posted it:
Hey how bout we not delete my posts and man the **** up you secret squirrel ass *****s.

http://www.curse.com

Whats up with that? Yall want to be more disengenuous or yall want to be straight with us this time.

For the record,
the url of the post the admins tried to cover up:
[link to the post]
The third post I haven't a screenshot of, but it went something like this "I wish it was true that the admins didn't delete posts".

A few things: kpaca said he did not read my PM until after he had posted what he did, but why not delete it when you know for sure that it's unwelcome? And after correctly assuming that an admin deleted the post, what makes one think that re-posting it is okay? The reaction to this should be either 1) why did my post get deleted (in which case the natural thing to do is ask)? or 2) so my post was deleted, I guess what I did wasn't allowed. And it wasn't like I was slow to ship an explanation to kpaca, it was in his inbox within 3 minutes of the deletion of the post.

And of course, it was already well known that this wasn't a kosher subject ever since Nai's wall of red text in the Gutter.

If, despite this blanket warning, he
wanted to know more about the status of things, there are multiple things he could, and should, have done. For example, instead of posting a hostile comment in Pegs drawing definite negative attention to the ordeal, he could, for example, have PM'd an admin about it to confirm/deny the rumor (we would have been able to deny the rumor while explaining the situation), he could have asked whether the subject was still not allowed to talk about, and he could have stopped when he realized that what he was doing was considered not okay.

Lastly, kpaca was on probation due to two earlier suspension evasions, so committing anything considered to be a suspension worthy offense would automatically turn into a ban instead.

Now, I want to say that the ban of kpaca (or any of the other users that were banned or suspended - I don't know who's received what penalty to be frank) was something that caused me no end of frustration, because I did not want to
ban him. I've defended him (and the other guys involved) many times behind closed doors, for sure more than they realize (and more than once have I been accused of playing favorites), and seeing this - in my eyes - self destruction, after all this time, after all the dialogue we've had... my annoyance then was, let's say, considerable.

Anyway, it is of course up to the staff to now review these bans and suspensions, and I'll respect either decision. My own view on this flies in the face of what I personally want, but I think the ban on kpaca, at the very least, was correct.

Two months later, we learned that the leak in this case was GR, but instructed by Nai. No other staff members knew this, and it would clearly have been very valuable information in all of this. I'm not going to re-publish the AIM log unless GR and kpaca think it's fine, but kpaca was told only half of the story, and also in a
way that understandably riled him up. And when my post that revealed that it was a misunderstanding was posted, that fact was not conveyed properly to kpaca (like, at all). So I'm interested to hear what the hell happened here, GR.

As for Kijin, I think that was more clean-cut than kpaca. He posted a huge CI thread revealing the information about Curse and such, I PM'd him to stop, he responded with a PM linking to the SCG thread and continued. I think I suspended him and went to bed, seething. In the morning, I resigned mainly because of that fact.

Kijin was banned, as was Madding, and badguy was later suspended. Madding was later unbanned and instead suspended. The reason for the differences in penalty was due to K&k probations.

Madding's, Shalako's, and poggydude's bans
While suspended, Madding used the gimmick belza to evade. Though claimed to be his girlfriend's account, the registration email on belza's account can be tracked to multiple different forums
with the username Madding. It was also pretty conspicuous that the gimmick started posting after years away immediately after Madding's suspension. He did nothing to deny this in his appeal threads, and the ban was upheld.

Shalako's gimmick, Zombie Zach, was shared with banned gutterites, and was therefore banned. We determined that this was entirely intentional, and that Shalako should be banned for harboring banned users. In the appeal thread, we felt Shalako was being dishonest, and we found no reason to think that the ban was incorrect.

poggydude was banned for using Hard Gay to troll and spam. If you actively try to bullshit around and make a mess, no reason to be lenient. Especially when done with a gimmick, which is inherently dishonest and sneaky.

The leak, MTGC, and "the future"
Staff leaks are one thing, but when you're leaked information about the discussion of rianalnn's re-application for staff and decide to ship him this, under a gimmick account:
n

You are nothing but a petty douchebag that can't let go of your grudges. If you dislike someone enough to do this, be a man and not a rat, and attach your name to it. That really is all I can say about that.

When I posted as abrasively as I did a month ago or so (the "OP" of Advice from iridium ITT), it was partially due to me being pissed about people deciding that it's cool do stuff like this. But like I've explained before, the "advice" I posted was sincere.

Anyway, I hope we can all agree that we have both messed up something fierce during the past six months. I
think staff messed up at several points, like I've explained, and you've contributed by bashing on us repeatedly, and in the end, the staff had no time for bullshit.

If the decision is to put those six months behind us and start anew, I'm 100% ready to do that, however. I'm not actually morally corrupt or even mad, and I can definitely sympathize with Boubouille's intentions. I want to reconcile. But MTGS and CI and everything has been running pretty smoothly during the past couple of months, and it's easy for someone to draw a line and point towards the reason for that. We're worried that it's a bad thing for MTGS to process the unbans, and that it creates more problems than it solves, so it's pretty damn important that if unbans happen, we should all try to make sure that things continue like they currently are (i.e. not ridiculous drama, but fun times with your forum friends).

I'm tired of writing now, so I'll hit "submit". I'm sure I've missed a whole lot of stuff, but it
should be okay. I can post more later if it's important.

Shalako · Postby **Shalako** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:02 pm

You don't think the Staff messing up and Us bashing on them are related?

Second Harkius · Postby **Second Harkius** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:06 pm

this thread is only going to cause bad feelings and derail the cordial and productive discussion we're having with Boubouille so i am going to close it

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:37 pm

And i, going to reopen it because this isnt mtgs and were big boys

iamabadman · Postby **iamabadman** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:41 pm

i'm going to post in it stating i'm watching the santa with muscles, a hulk hogan movie.

hogan has a lot of hair in this movie wtf and its from 1996

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:42 pm

Sene, after reading your multiple comments, double speak, and passive aggressive diatribes on this, all I can think of your opinions can be summerized in his post, which someone else wrote for me but could not be more accutate imo:

is my impression of Sene, "Everything went down so wrong and I tried so hard to stop it all from happening but if it were up to me now I think the bannings were right and should stay but I am glad that everyone is getting a second chance and will be welcome'd back with open arms but between you and me I think nobody should be unbanned but it sounds like reversals might be in order and I say it's about time we fix things after all the wrongdoings that were committed by me and everyone else except for me, so let's just see what happens and cross our fingers that everyone is allowed back but if I could be honest for a minute it seems like the bannings were right after all and will never be
reversed but who knows."

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:44 pm

And considering im still banned, calling any of us petty douchebags who just hold grudges is rather rich pal, that said, I will now be going back to dialouge with boubou, someone who provides actions instead of words Sene, unlike you, who I have found to be nothing more than a hollow shell of attempted "pr for better feelings"

I will however leave this thread open for everyone else

Pendulum · Postby **Pendulum** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 4:51 pm

Oh, kewl, thanks Jones!

Christ on a bike.

( G_R ) · Postby **( G_R )** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:02 pm

tl;dr

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:14 pm

@Shalako: Yes. I do think they are related. Sometimes we deserved flak, sometimes we did not deserve the flak we got. All-in-all, the negativity was pretty excessive though, and at times, pretty inappropriate.

@kpaca: You think I'm being dishonest, that's fine. Do you have a specific point, or am I just dishonest all the way through? Do you think I'm factually incorrect, or that I'm dishonest about my own intentions/opinions/something?

My point here is really that in order for this to work out, you need to try to see where you went wrong as well. I haven't seen you be very good at accepting part of the blame (could be mistaken, could be I'm just missing posts/have missed posts). If unbans are really going to happen and work out, both sides need to be able to shake hands and say "We both screwed the hell up, let's not repeat those mistakes, and let's try to move on". Does that not
make sense at all?

Heck, the primary reason the staff is mostly against the unbans is exactly that (at least I think so) - you need to accept criticism too. If not, I do not see how unbans can possibly work out.

And considering im still banned, calling any of us petty douchebags who just hold grudges is rather rich pal, that said, I will now be going back to dialouge with boubou, someone who provides actions instead of words Sene, unlike you, who I have found to be nothing more than a hollow shell of attempted "pr for better feelings"

I will however leave this thread open for everyone else

I'm calling the one guy who PM'd ria because he has a grudge a petty douchebag, yes. Okay, I'm grudging the grudger I guess. Or something.

I have two things to say.

First, I am incredibly disappointed in you Sene, for posting this:

The only reason that you possibly could have left that in there was to drag me into
this conversation as well, and that's a dick move, Sene.

Woah. That was not my intention at all. I have absolutely no intention to drag you into the conversation. I included it because it was what N_S got suspended for, and I tried to make it comprehensive. Some people don't have access to the Gutter anymore and might have forgotten exactly what was said.

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:19 pm

I was not aware, sorry.

( G_R ) · Postby **( G_R )** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:20 pm

Pendulum · Postby **Pendulum** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:24 pm

Perhaps it might help, Sene, if you told people what the penalty was for accepting their wrongdoing. If the Gutter comes clean and just "admits they shit the bed," what happens then? Do they gain any advantages, or suffer and disadvantages, for doing so?

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:28 pm

I will not admit guilt when I am not guilty.

You can disparage the way I talk to people, or my attitude sure, but I have done nothing I have been accussed of. I don't see you admit mistakes either, so much as tell us "well We prbably messed up somewhere, but really......yiu guys need to accept blame you drove us to this"

Pot, kettle, black.

Pendulum · Postby **Pendulum** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:31 pm

But you're both black?

iamabadman · Postby **iamabadman** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:32 pm

SANTA, IS REALLY HULK HOGAN, BECAUSE HE HAS MUSCLES, AND HE'S TRYING TO HELP SAVE AN ORPHANAGE AROUND CHRISTMAS.

AND HE DUELS A DUDE WITH CRYSTALS, THAT EXPLODE WHEN STRUCK!

Shalako · Postby **Shalako** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:38 pm

So do you want Sene? "Us" saying we are sorry?

You don't seem to know just what it is that caused all this drama in the first place

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:43 pm

But you're both black?

I believe Sene is of typical Scandinavian complexion iirc

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:50 pm

Perhaps it might help, Sene, if you told people what the penalty was for accepting their wrongdoing. If the Gutter comes clean and just "admits they shit the bed," what happens then? Do they gain any advantages, or suffer and disadvantages, for doing so?

I can assure you that staff would not be all like "AHA! So you did mess up after all! That's exactly what we've said all along, so ban upheld" etc. I think that this would simply open dialogue again, and give people more incentive to listen to what the other side has to say. Obviously it would never be like "dudes accepted their crimes, guess we can all forgive each other now, process unbans", but it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

[quote=&
quot;Mogadishu Jones » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:28 pm"]I will not admit guilt when I am not guilty.

You can disparage the way I talk to people, or my attitude sure, but I have done nothing I have been accussed of. I don't see you admit mistakes either, so much as tell us "well We prbably messed up somewhere, but really......yiu guys need to accept blame you drove us to this"

Pot, kettle, black.[/quote]
That's the line of thinking that says "sure, I struck him down, but he was being a dick!" You don't have to fire even if someone asks you to.

And me not admitting mistakes?
"We were afraid of leaks and bullshit. One week before the thread was going up we felt like geniuses because it hadn't been leaked. One week after the thread went up I posted a huge apology thread in the Mod Lounge. Heh."
"This was our, no, my
fault, for starting discussions before we, as a staff, had even made up our minds about what we wanted in the first place."
"I feel that the single biggest mistake I ever made as an admin of this site was (along with my co-admins at the time) bringing the information about Curse down from the Admin Lounge and into the lower staff lounges." (from MTGS)
For example. Lots more elsewhere and probably here as well, I don't really remember.

Pendulum · Postby **Pendulum** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:03 pm

Why are you talking like and Admin, Sene? There isn't a reason to speak on behalf of the staff here.
You want to settle this, obviously, and you seem willing to accept your portion of the guilt... are you sure you aren't just here because you kind of feel bad and want to do what you can to make it right? It seems to me like you're skipping the important step of saying how you feel.

Kaitscralt · Postby **Kaitscralt** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:16 pm

Sene, I don't know how much more information I can give out without violating me and my girlfriends privacy. Stop telling me that the Belza account is a Madding gimmick. I am not a retard who would evade a suspension with an account that is known to be affiliated with me. The XXXXXXXXXXX email account is a joint email account for different social networking sites that I ultimately yielded to my girlfriend years ago when I got tired of its roleplaying connontations and switched to two other primary emails which I can tell Boubs in private. Look up the XXXXXXXXXXX email account on real life websites like Amazon, Pinterest, etc. The accounts on such actual websites with that email address all are registered to Heather XXXXX. If you look at any newer accounts on Magic: the Gathering websites and stores (this one, SCG, twitchtv, other MTG stores) you will not find any Madding or Kaitscralt accounts registered
to that email address in years because IT IS NOT MINE ANY MORE.

Stop trying to be internet detectives. It is creepy and insulting. I own a house with my girlfriend of almost eight years and we share in interests and hobbies. She uses things of mine because I am creative and come up with names she likes. That is her account, that is her email address, that was her post because she was mad that I was mad, but she quickly lost interest in lolforum drama while I continued to be a whiny little bitch about it around the house.

To reiterate : there is ample proof that email address is used daily on public sites by my girlfriend Heather, and proof that the MTG entity named Madding/Kaitscralt moved to different email addresses for forums/sites years ago. Can I make this any clearer, Sene?

I didn't appeal it because I didn't want to. But Boubs offered his services to us and I accepted. So you can be sure all the above info will be presented to him in a PM if needed including the different accounts and
email addresses across different websites that easily dismiss this absurd gimmick charge as a case of flash banning.

ExarionUniverse1 · Postby **ExarionUniverse1** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:18 pm

"I feel that the single biggest mistake I ever made as an admin of this site was (along with my co-admins at the time) bringing the information about Curse down from the Admin Lounge and into the lower staff lounges." (from MTGS)"

This should be done as a public thing for all members to discuss. And don't give me its Hannes business to decide. The members make up his enterprise..

Kaitscralt · Postby **Kaitscralt** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:24 pm

Onar, can you read the post I just wrote and let me know if it makes sense to you. I tried writing it clearly so foreigners could understand it because I am tired of an easy explanation being ignored.

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Perhaps it might help, Sene, if you told people what the penalty was for accepting their wrongdoing. If the Gutter comes clean and just "admits they shit the bed," what happens then? Do they gain any advantages, or suffer and disadvantages, for doing so?
I can assure you that staff would not be all like "AHA! So you did mess up after all! That's exactly what we've said all along, so ban upheld" etc. I think that this would simply open dialogue again, and give people more incentive to listen to what the other side has to say. Obviously it would never be like &
quot;dudes accepted their crimes, guess we can all forgive each other now, process unbans", but it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

I will not admit guilt when I am not guilty.

You can disparage the way I talk to people, or my attitude sure, but I have done nothing I have been accussed of. I don't see you admit mistakes either, so much as tell us "well We prbably messed up somewhere, but really......yiu guys need to accept blame you drove us to this"

Pot, kettle, black.
That's the line of thinking that says "sure, I struck him down, but he was being a dick!" You don't have to fire even if someone asks you to.

And me not admitting mistakes?
"We were afraid of leaks and bullshit. One week before the thread was going up we felt like geniuses because it
hadn't been leaked. One week after the thread went up I posted a huge apology thread in the Mod Lounge. Heh."
"This was our, no, my fault, for starting discussions before we, as a staff, had even made up our minds about what we wanted in the first place."
"I feel that the single biggest mistake I ever made as an admin of this site was (along with my co-admins at the time) bringing the information about Curse down from the Admin Lounge and into the lower staff lounges." (from MTGS)
For example. Lots more elsewhere and probably here as well, I don't really remember.

Well to be fair I have struck someone in the face for being a huge dick before and I still don't feel bad for it.

However, I don't see how this is at all similar. I will gladly admit when I am guilty, as I did when I ratted myself out to Nai. I am however (me personally, not "us" the gutter, me) not guilty of anything you have levied at me other than having
an abrasive personality that I dont hide.

What mistakes do you want me to admit culpability for?

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:27 pm

Perhaps it might help, Sene, if you told people what the penalty was for accepting their wrongdoing. If the Gutter comes clean and just "admits they shit the bed," what happens then? Do they gain any advantages, or suffer and disadvantages, for doing so?
I can assure you that staff would not be all like "AHA! So you did mess up after all! That's exactly what we've said all along, so ban upheld" etc. I think that this would simply open dialogue again, and give people more incentive to listen to what the other side has to say. Obviously it would never be like &
quot;dudes accepted their crimes, guess we can all forgive each other now, process unbans", but it would definitely be a step in the right direction.

I will not admit guilt when I am not guilty.

You can disparage the way I talk to people, or my attitude sure, but I have done nothing I have been accussed of. I don't see you admit mistakes either, so much as tell us "well We prbably messed up somewhere, but really......yiu guys need to accept blame you drove us to this"

Pot, kettle, black.
That's the line of thinking that says "sure, I struck him down, but he was being a dick!" You don't have to fire even if someone asks you to.

And me not admitting mistakes?
"We were afraid of leaks and bullshit. One week before the thread was going up we felt like geniuses because it
hadn't been leaked. One week after the thread went up I posted a huge apology thread in the Mod Lounge. Heh."
"This was our, no, my fault, for starting discussions before we, as a staff, had even made up our minds about what we wanted in the first place."
"I feel that the single biggest mistake I ever made as an admin of this site was (along with my co-admins at the time) bringing the information about Curse down from the Admin Lounge and into the lower staff lounges." (from MTGS)
For example. Lots more elsewhere and probably here as well, I don't really remember.

Also @ your first part: we are talkng to boubou, im pretty sure there is no one here interested in reopening dialouge with any of the mtgstaff on anything other than a personal level.

ExarionUniverse1 · Postby **ExarionUniverse1** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:32 pm

Onar, can you read the post I just wrote and let me know if it makes sense to you. I tried writing it clearly so foreigners could understand it because I am tired of an easy explanation being ignored.

Makes sense as clear as a known fact

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:45 pm

Why are you talking like and Admin, Sene? There isn't a reason to speak on behalf of the staff here.
You want to settle this, obviously, and you seem willing to accept your portion of the guilt... are you sure you aren't just here because you kind of feel bad and want to do what you can to make it right? It seems to me like you're skipping the important step of saying how you feel.

Mm. Okay. How I feel is: I think we've made a ton of mistakes and are partly to blame for where we are now. I think the bans probably wouldn't have happened without our mistakes. I think the staff has tried to enforce the letter of rules more than the spirit of rules. The primary thing that's preventing me from saying a very definite "yes, let's try
this" on unbans is your attitude of "we/they did nothing wrong, so why are we/they banned".

And as for me speaking as MTGS Admin on a srsbsns agenda, I guess that's just the nature of the whole drama thing. Usually I'm not this lame. I think.

Sene, I don't know how much more information I can give out without violating me and my girlfriends privacy. Stop telling me that the Belza account is a Madding gimmick. I am not a retard who would evade a suspension with an account that is known to be affiliated with me. The XXXXXXXXXXX email account is a joint email account for different social networking sites that I ultimately yielded to my girlfriend years ago when I got tired of its roleplaying connontations and switched to two other primary emails which I can tell Boubs in private. Look up the XXXXXXXXXXX
email account on real life websites like Amazon, Pinterest, etc. The accounts on such actual websites with that email address all are registered to Heather XXXXX. If you look at any newer accounts on Magic: the Gathering websites and stores (this one, SCG, twitchtv, other MTG stores) you will not find any Madding or Kaitscralt accounts registered to that email address in years because IT IS NOT MINE ANY MORE.

Stop trying to be internet detectives. It is creepy and insulting. I own a house with my girlfriend of almost eight years and we share in interests and hobbies. She uses things of mine because I am creative and come up with names she likes. That is her account, that is her email address, that was her post because she was mad that I was mad, but she quickly lost interest in lolforum drama while I continued to be a whiny little bitch about it around the house.

To reiterate : there is ample proof that email address is used daily on public sites by my girlfriend Heather, and proof that
the MTG entity named Madding/Kaitscralt moved to different email addresses for forums/sites years ago. Can I make this any clearer, Sene?

I didn't appeal it because I didn't want to. But Boubs offered his services to us and I accepted. So you can be sure all the above info will be presented to him in a PM if needed including the different accounts and email addresses across different websites that easily dismiss this absurd gimmick charge as a case of flash banning.

There was nothing absurd about the ban (with the facts available to us), but maybe the information you're providing could've turned it around for you. Since we heard nothing, I assumed you weren't contesting the "accusation".

Well to be fair I have struck someone in the face for being a huge dick before and I still don't feel bad
for it.

However, I don't see how this is at all similar. I will gladly admit when I am guilty, as I did when I ratted myself out to Nai. I am however (me personally, not "us" the gutter, me) not guilty of anything you have levied at me other than having an abrasive personality that I dont hide.

What mistakes do you want me to admit culpability for?

I'm actually not out to distribute blame for specific incidents. I'm just looking for everyone to not have the "I did nothing wrong" attitude (including staff). That is absolutely all.

Also @ your first part: we are talkng to boubou, im pretty sure there is no one here interested in reopening dialouge with any of the mtgstaff on anything other than a personal level.

I personally think it's important for us to be able to
shake hands before we can move on. We can't go on about being internet mad at each other forever.

iamabadman · Postby **iamabadman** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:47 pm

now green lantern is on. because nothing is on tv

Kaitscralt · Postby **Kaitscralt** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:51 pm

There was nothing absurd about the ban (with the facts available to us), but maybe the information you're providing could've turned it around for you. Since we heard nothing, I assumed you weren't contesting the "accusation".

It was absurd because previous administrators had cleared the account for Heather and you guys decided you held a higher say than they did, because it was Gutter-banning time.

Yannaria · Postby **Yannaria** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:58 pm

I can't speak for the other gutter members, but I didn't do anything wrong either. I was accused of gimmick evasion on suspension why I did not evade my suspension with a gimmick.

Mogadishu Jones · Postby **Mogadishu Jones** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:00 pm

I didnt do anything to warrant my ban, hence that recurring attitude Sene. My ban remains unfounded and I remain innocent I'm sorry if this bothers you. Could I have handled myself with more tsct nd dignity? Absolutely, thats on me. But stop saying I should admit my banning was warranted. I am not guilty of any of the charges i have been banned for.

ExarionUniverse1 · Postby **ExarionUniverse1** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:02 pm

Why are you talking like and Admin, Sene? There isn't a reason to speak on behalf of the staff here.
You want to settle this, obviously, and you seem willing to accept your portion of the guilt... are you sure you aren't just here because you kind of feel bad and want to do what you can to make it right? It seems to me like you're skipping the important step of saying how you feel.
Mm. Okay. How I feel is: I think we've made a ton of mistakes and are partly to blame for where we are now. I think the bans probably wouldn't have happened without our mistakes. I think the
staff has tried to enforce the letter of rules more than the spirit of rules. The primary thing that's preventing me from saying a very definite "yes, let's try this" on unbans is your attitude of "we/they did nothing wrong, so why are we/they banned".

And as for me speaking as MTGS Admin on a srsbsns agenda, I guess that's just the nature of the whole drama thing. Usually I'm not this lame. I think.

Sene, I don't know how much more information I can give out without violating me and my girlfriends privacy. Stop telling me that the Belza account is a Madding gimmick. I am not a retard who would evade a suspension with an account that is known to be affiliated with me. The XXXXXXXXXXX email account is a joint email account for different social networking sites that I ultimately yielded to my girlfriend years
ago when I got tired of its roleplaying connontations and switched to two other primary emails which I can tell Boubs in private. Look up the XXXXXXXXXXX email account on real life websites like Amazon, Pinterest, etc. The accounts on such actual websites with that email address all are registered to Heather XXXXX. If you look at any newer accounts on Magic: the Gathering websites and stores (this one, SCG, twitchtv, other MTG stores) you will not find any Madding or Kaitscralt accounts registered to that email address in years because IT IS NOT MINE ANY MORE.

Stop trying to be internet detectives. It is creepy and insulting. I own a house with my girlfriend of almost eight years and we share in interests and hobbies. She uses things of mine because I am creative and come up with names she likes. That is her account, that is her email address, that was her post because she was mad that I was mad, but she quickly lost interest in lolforum drama while I continued to be a whiny
little bitch about it around the house.

To reiterate : there is ample proof that email address is used daily on public sites by my girlfriend Heather, and proof that the MTG entity named Madding/Kaitscralt moved to different email addresses for forums/sites years ago. Can I make this any clearer, Sene?

I didn't appeal it because I didn't want to. But Boubs offered his services to us and I accepted. So you can be sure all the above info will be presented to him in a PM if needed including the different accounts and email addresses across different websites that easily dismiss this absurd gimmick charge as a case of flash banning.
There was nothing absurd about the ban (with the facts available to us), but maybe the information you're providing could've turned it around for you. Since we heard nothing, I assumed you weren't contesting the "accusation".

Well to be fair I have struck someone in the face for being a huge dick before and I still don't feel bad for it.

However, I don't see how this is at all similar. I will gladly admit when I am guilty, as I did when I ratted myself out to Nai. I am however (me personally, not "us" the gutter, me) not guilty of anything you have levied at me other than having an abrasive personality that I dont hide.

What mistakes do you want me to admit culpability for?
I'm actually not out to distribute blame for specific incidents. I'm just looking for everyone to not have the "I did nothing wrong" attitude (including staff). That is absolutely all.

Also @ your first part: we are talkng to boubou, im pretty sure there is no one here
interested in reopening dialouge with any of the mtgstaff on anything other than a personal level.
I personally think it's important for us to be able to shake hands before we can move on. We can't go on about being internet mad at each other forever.

Sene , why has ER not admitted his mistakes as well ? Why has Megiddo not?

If you guys admit to some mistakes , then everyone has to admit theirs .

Kaitscralt · Postby **Kaitscralt** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:06 pm

Sene wants everyone to shake hands before we move forward but only one MTGS administrator will post here and he happens to be calling people petty douchebags.

ExarionUniverse1 · Postby **ExarionUniverse1** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:09 pm

Sene wants everyone to shake hands before we move forward but only one MTGS administrator will post here and he happens to be calling people petty douchebags.

thats my point : most of MTGS admins have made grave mistakes and yet only one has the dignity and courage to admit it.

and I don't want to predict , but those admins will likely say that one admin is wrong and ban him.

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:09 pm

@EU: I'll speak on my own behalf, I won't speak for others. And while we are at it, in case you're wondering, this is all mine, I didn't consult anyone before posting these posts, and I didn't ask anyone for opinions. Just so we're clear

@kpaca: that is fair. Yeah, I'm not looking to hear "my ban was just", I don't expect that, and I respect your opinion that it was not fair. I just want all of us to question ourselves "is it possible that it is partly my fault that the shit that happened this summer resolved the way it did?".

@All: I just want to say that I created this thread now because it seemed like Boubouille had posted his verdict already (i.e. that he thinks you, or some of you, should be unbanned), so I thought I wasn't interrupting that anymore. My apologies if I was mistaken.

ExarionUniverse1 · Postby **ExarionUniverse1** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:12 pm

@EU: I'll speak on my own behalf, I won't speak on others.

@kpaca: that is fair. Yeah, I'm not looking to hear "my ban was just", I don't expect that, and I respect your opinion that was not fair. I just want all of us to question ourselves "is it possible that it is partly my fault that the shit that happened this summer resolved the way it did?".

@All: I just want to say that I created this thread now because it seemed like Boubouille had posted his verdict already (i.e. that he thinks you, or some of you, should be unbanned), so I thought I wasn't interrupting that anymore. My apologies if I was mistaken.

Sene as a representative of MTGS , you said you guys made mistakes , meaning you talk for MTGS.

Kaitscralt · Postby **Kaitscralt** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:19 pm

I personally don't want to be unbanned unless everyone is unbanned but I will see what happens and talk to Boubs about it when the time comes.

Kaitscralt · Postby **Kaitscralt** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:23 pm

@EU: I'll speak on my own behalf, I won't speak on others.

@kpaca: that is fair. Yeah, I'm not looking to hear "my ban was just", I don't expect that, and I respect your opinion that was not fair. I just want all of us to question ourselves "is it possible that it is partly my fault that the shit that happened this summer resolved the way it did?".

@All: I just want to say that I created this thread now because it seemed like Boubouille had posted his verdict already (i.e. that he thinks you, or some of you, should be unbanned), so I thought I wasn't interrupting
that anymore. My apologies if I was mistaken.
Sene as a representative of MTGS , you said you guys made mistakes , meaning you talk for MTGS.

Actually Onar if Sene says he is posting his own thoughts then that is all the disclaimer he needs. If not then we are no different than when the iridium holds the entire Gutter accountable for kpaca saying some naughty words. Sene is not on his site, he is a member here and personally I like seeing him call kpaca a douchebag, it amuses me.

Sene · Postby **Sene** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:41 pm

I'm not calling kpaca a douchebag, as I do not think kpaca is a douchebag. I think he's very blunt, but generally a good guy. That goes for pretty much all of you, by the way...

But yeah, I'm not doing this as an official representative of MTGS or its staff. I am doing this, representing only myself, because I decided to. I imagine there are plenty of staff members that disagree with my decision to do it, and would not at all like me saying that I am representing them by doing this.

Shalako · Postby **Shalako** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:44 pm

So why didn't you find out what the Staff wanted to do instead of offering To Settle things when you don't know if that is what the Staff Want.

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