1. Iggey for the patriotic uncovering of the cover-up regarding the sale to Curse
CI Lounge post from Iggey
2. "Zombie" Zach conducted himself with the aplomb of a true Warrior. Can anyone even compete?[/mod:1poho3ih]
[spoiler=][quote1=Zombie Zach;9226694]This display of integrity is certainly reassuring
This said we do have to admit that in practical terms, the gutter still got nuked and all its most prominent members (including 100% of the guttermod team) are now sitewide banned. Thus the original goal of Curse seems to have been met.
Ironic, no?[/quote1]
[quote1=Zombie Zach;9095554]I think some things could be put into perspective regarding this debacle:
The fact is that Gutter members are being considered "scumbags" by a no small part of the staff is rather unsettling, to say the very least.
To put things into perspective, you'd have to take into account that the Gutter has just found out that we have been lied to since the whole time, and that the plan to shutdown the gutter (see the CI thread) is intimately linked to the sale to Curse. Since these 2.5 months, there has been a so-called compromise thread where the alternatives
to closing down the Gutter have been discussed for 1115 (and counting!) posts. The negotiation process was... strange... to say the least. Issues would be discussed, and generally the Gutter would come with a compromise, and all of a sudden something else would be thrown on the table every time a compromise would be close to be reached.
This can be seen as a classic case of stalling now that we learned that we have been lied all this time. As the saying goes, confidence is like virginity: you can only lose it once.
Now as per the leaks, and taking into account that our community has slowly but steadily lost faith in the sincerity of the upper staff, you enter one further equation in this distrust on the word of the staff.
The anonymous leakers on the staff, as well as the persons who spilled the beams in the Gutter are being treated to niceties like being called "The scum of the Earth" et al. but has it been considered for a single second that their actions might not have been
motivated by selfishness, but rather the contrary?
- Maybe some staff members silently disagreed with these "smoke and mirrors" tactics and thought that the community that was being shutdown deserved to know the truth about what was happening?
- Maybe N_S and then the recently banned members thought that people in the community deserved a little token of respect, and to be prepared to what was coming forward?
While the closure was legitimate from a practical point of view (privately owned forum, no first amendment, yadda yadda) maybe the fact that this was a huge blow to a strong community could have been handled better? Maybe you could have explained that while this was a huge blow to a small subset of the community, there where a lot of benefits for the userbase at large, that you were sympathetic to our plight, but that the needs of the forums at large superseeded our own needs? That you could assist us in moving our subforum history somewhere else? maybe providing us with the
sql dumps of all the gutter posts if we wished to host them elsewhere and keep our community alive?
I know, crazy ideas.
I mean (in more blunt terms), we were keeping the staff's dirty secret, why did the staff feel the need to kick us in the nuts at every juncture?
And yet, the Gutter showed you guys much more respect that you deserved. At anytime N_S or everyone could have posted in the rumor mill about the sale, or in the open, and they didn't. They didn't even when they kept being kicked in the balls on a daily basis for the last month. N_S was banned, yet it seems he never took the care to come back under a gimmick and spill the beams in here or somewhere else...
The gutter members, even the banned ones, showed much more restraint and honesty than the staff itself. This could be something to consider everytime you guys flame the members of a community that did nothing else that defend themselves from attacks.
The Guttermods were not staff members. they didn't
abide by the Staff CoC. Their responsibilities were to take care and protect their community: the Gutter. This is what they did when they informed their userbase they had been lied to all this time. The accusations of selfishness are therefore invalid as it was out of deep care for their userbase that they did what they did.
------------
As for the recent bannings and banning revisions, they reek of kangaroo courts yet again. The suspended/banned thread states that kijin and kpaca were banned because they where already under probation.
Why were they on probation? For voting in a poll/thanking a post while suspended (for some bogus reasons).
We kept being spit in the face for 2.5months and this is the end result. But I'll be damned if I think we can take the blame for this. There is only so much that the "battered wife" syndrome can help us in beautifying reality.[/quote1]
[quote1=Zombie Zach;9229382]Do you even realize what a big JOKE you guys are?
You,
a global moderator, are telling us that there are self-serving, incompetent people with questionable motivations on staff.
So then if you know this to be a fact and will even share this with us, why don't you just get rid of these rotten apples?
Do you guys need an international summit or something to take self-evident actions?
[/quote1][quote1=Zombie Zach;9237070]I might have said this before ITT but again:
Having "cleared" all these "misunderstandings" is all cool and swell, but at the end of the day, it seems we are left with a plethora of regular members with 5000+ posts -some of which ex-moderators and globals- which are, at this exact time, banned from the forum.
We also have a subforum, which was thriving before you guys messed with it, which is now effectively dead.
But I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding too...[/quote1:
1poho3ih]
[quote1=Zombie Zach;9239350]Yeah, I love it that everytime someone mentions the REAL consequences of these "misunderstandings" (bannings, eradication of a community), we suddenly start hearing crickets chirping ITT[/quote1]
[quote1=Zombie Zach;9244485]I get it that the question about who got the raw deal as a consequence of these "misunderstandings" is somewhat taboo. Fair enough.
Another question then: You guys have made it pretty clear that leaks and the diffusion of privileged information is something that causes damage to the community, besides the fact that it is morally reprehensible.
Taking this into account, we can therefore assume that the privacy of current and past members of MTGSalvation is something very important for you guys. For example, you would never dream of going around the Internet, asking the staff of other websites to disclose private information about members of these sites who also happen to be members of MTGS.
n
I mean you guys would never do something like this, would you?[/quote1]
[quote1=Galspanic;9244541]I have a close working relationship with Jazaray over at MOTL. Because our rules say that if you rip someone off and try to trade here you get banned, I often have to find out why someone was banned there. I do the same on Pojo since I spend about an hour every week on each of those site looking for potential issues (rippers flow up and down stream). We compare notes and help each other track down return rippers. I have also been in touch with the police in a number of states.
Is that what you mean? I feel like you are baiting an answer but I can't tell.[/quote1]
[quote1=Zombie Zach;9244743]That goes without saying, people are expected to share information if felonies are commited or otherwise innocent people are at harm's risk.
My pondering is more general. For people who have commited no felonies (like ripping people in trades or plotting
malicious internet attacks), is there any reasonable expectation that the info they wish to maintain private (like, say other sites registration emails) should not be expected to asked for to third parties by this site's staff?
Is that a reasonable expectation?[/quote1][/spoiler]
[mod]3. Hard Gay earns a rightful place in this race for his excellent capabilities at being concise
DangerZone created quite a commotion during the gloves thread, when he declared himself to be another staff member harassed by rianalnn
