Winter's Ban

[Blake]

just an aside, i didn't even know about the surveying until now, and it feels a little off that no one who likes and/or doesn't hate winter seems to have not been sourced

 

Obviously I have no evidence that this didn't happen, I just doubt it did. If my fears could be assuaged, that'd be great.

 

Public opinion of who to ban also just seems like a poor tool, in general, because it puts a decision that should be on the team alone on the members. Either shifting blame to them OR empowering them to railroad people out of here, later on. It's been argued against many times, with more eloquent words than I can use.

[evilfusion]

You may have gotten the wrong impression.

 

While it is true that I handled the ban personally, it was not done mid-deliberations, or even "abruptly", relative to the discussion taking place. Zai may have gone to bed prior to the ban actually taking place (as I waited for the other mods to weigh in on that prior to actually doing it), but he had definitely been present when I suggested handling the ban myself, and had agreed with that proposal.

 

The logic behind me handling it myself was, quite frankly, because I'm the moderator the possible dissenters among the member base cannot win over with the usual tactics of crying power abuse, or accusing me of having emotional bias. Almost anyone else can be pointed to and cited as having a weakness or situation that would justify them unfairly seeking Winter's head. I approach situations as neutrally as possible and make decisions based on what I believe is best, either for the forum, the mod team, the member base, whomever the decision concerns. I listen to criticism and openly acknowledge that my judgment is not infallible, but it is most often NOT biased.

 

The reason Winter was not forewarned prior to the ban was because I considered the approach impractical if enacting a permaban. Telling someone they're about to be banned would require a willingness to obsessively check to see if they've read the PM prior to taking any action, and if by some chance, Winter went to bed before that, action wouldn't be able to proceed until the following morning, which overcomplicates things. If he did see it and my attention had faltered, there was the uncomfortable possibility that a member, now aware they're about to be culled, might go out in one last defiant hurrah, as there is no longer anything that can be done to them that they're not already fated to experience.

[Flame Dragon]

I said outright in the mod forum and I'll say it here, we shouldn't survey members about banning people. My reason was that we shouldn't need member approval to ban someone we as a team view as a problem, but the issues Black raises are also very real.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

For the record, I also believe crowdsourcing on bans in any capacity is an awful idea, for the multitude of reasons that are abundantly clear. It's just that it totally happened, so I was offering a way for it to happen that is less awful.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

The logic behind me handling it myself was, quite frankly, because I'm the moderator the possible dissenters among the member base cannot win over with the usual tactics of crying power abuse, or accusing me of having emotional bias. Almost anyone else can be pointed to and cited as having a weakness or situation that would justify them unfairly seeking Winter's head. I approach situations as neutrally as possible and make decisions based on what I believe is best, either for the forum, the mod team, the member base, whomever the decision concerns. I listen to criticism and openly acknowledge that my judgment is not infallible, but it is most often NOT biased.

 

I don't feel you had much of a role in this ban at all personally, you just happened to execute. You were the fall guy, if anything. That being said, you're close associates with any number of moderators who do take personal issue with Winter, and you heard them out. You respect their word, in some cases you had a role in their appointment, and you're not above being convinced in spite of your principles, particularly in the midst of an echo chamber that the mod forum - I'm sure in spite of best efforts - devolves into. Your arguments here have to be representative of the mod team's collective will which can't entirely parallel your own, and that is why they appear so weak. 

 

Permanently banning Winter for his words does not have a precedent, should not set a precedent, and the only way to avoid that precedent is to reverse this decision. You either do things by clearly outlined rules that members can avoid punishments by following or you have a tyranny. If you want to have a tyranny, I can't stop you. Just understand that's the road you'd be going down. Such a tyranny would have its advantages - never having to deal with the member base complaining or crying power abuse for instance (power abuse'd be understood as the lay of the land), but you'd be doing the wrong thing.

[Tesability Black]

Polaris, someone being unbanned a second time from permaban is also unprecedented (as far as I am aware of, could be wrong). Which precedent are you wishing to set?

 

Unbanning a second time someone that should have never been unbanned to begin with or leaving him to stay banned by admittedly off-key ways?

Also, the fact that you refer to these mods as a tyranny is laughable. I've been in cases where I have seen both sides of sites like this that have tyrannies. If these mods are such, I'd rather have them over some of the ones I've dealt with.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Polaris, someone being unbanned a second time from permaban is also unprecedented (as far as I am aware of, could be wrong). Which precedent are you wishing to set?

 

Wahrheit.

 

Also, the fact that you refer to these mods as a tyranny is laughable. I've been in cases where I have seen both sides of sites like this that have tyrannies. If these mods are such, I'd rather have them over some of the ones I've dealt with.

 

 

As of now it's a tyranny that I believe can be saved. Sorry to hear you've been on poorly moderated sites (I have too!). I'd rather this site not become one (again). 

[Tesability Black]

Alright, I will yield on that. However, I have noticed that you're willing to fight to have Winter back, but until now have mentioned nothing about this 'Wahrheit'. Is it possible that you might have a personal stake in Winter being back?

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Alright, I will yield on that. However, I have noticed that you're willing to fight to have Winter back, but until now have mentioned nothing about this 'Warrheit'. Is it possible that you might have a personal stake in Winter being back?

Well, wahrheit isn't banned, so

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

The conditions of Wahrheit's bans are a very long story and involved much more drama than Winter's, but none of his permabans were fair either and so he was allowed to come back. As Winter should be! 

[Tesability Black]

...and that's what I get for not doing research before opening maw, so I'll admit that I ate my own tail on this.

 

EDIT: How was his first perma not fair? Enlighten me on this.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

I'm not super clear on the details of Winter's first permaban but I believe it involved a dispute with former TCG moderator Klav, who has since been demoted, permabanned, and is widely considered to have been an awful moderator. I wouldn't really know though as I wasn't active in TCG during Klav's reign.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Klav was absolutely not a moderator at the time. I wasn't aware he ever was.

 

Winter was banned by Nai.

[Tesability Black]

If you don't even know the story behind Winter's original Perma-Ban, then how can you claim that it was either fair or unfair?

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

The part about Nai being the one to hand Winter his first perma is definitely true. I believe the dispute with Klav was the reason that led to it, and now Klav is the one permabanned for reasons I'm not sure why. I believe Klav had a short time as moderator but am unsure on that point as well and perhaps I'm conflating him with Crab Helmet, who was a fallen mod who got permabanned, as I wasn't around TCG for much of Klav's time. 

 

If you don't even know the story behind Winter's original Perma-Ban, then how can you claim that it was either fair or unfair?

 

It having been reversed suggests it was. I'm fairly against permabans on principle barring certain extreme violations as in Thar's case.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

The part about Nai being the one to hand Winter his first perma is definitely true. I believe the dispute with Klav was the reason that led to it, and now Klav is the one permabanned for reasons I'm not sure why.

Klav was banned because he was generally awful, as well as a specific hateful post directed at Raeg.

 

Winter was initially banned because of a dispute with klav over fuckwhatever, and after I believe 5 months it was decided by the team that his ban was unjust and he was allowed to return. Though Nai has expressed that he wishes Winter was not unbanned, due to general distaste, as far as I have seen he (as well as the team as a whole) has maintained that the initial ban was the incorrect response to the conflict, and that Klav was to blame for the incident.

If you don't even know the story behind Winter's original Perma-Ban, then how can you claim that it was either fair or unfair?

Don't you find this a bit hypocritical?

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

I see. That sounds generally awful. 

 

History aside, I am familiar with the circumstances of this permaban (Winter's second, thousands of posts and a couple years later) and feel I can speak to the concerns it prompts now. 

[Tesability Black]

Not really, for it is hard to judge if something is fair or not if one knows not the whole story.

 

But I'm trying to argue when I'm drugged up on ibuprofin (and making mistakes I wouldn't normally make), so I'm bowing back out of this.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

You're right - though only God knows the whole story imo, so we have to work with what we have and fill in the gaps as we do. 

[Mutant Monster RAEG-HAPYP]

Klav was absolutely not a moderator at the time. I wasn't aware he ever was.

 

Winter was banned by Nai.

Klav being a mod at any point in time would have been genuinely terrifying and one of the worst decisions the site ever made.

 

Klav is an example of a member who should never be unbanned under any circumstances. Even if you take what happened with me out of the equation, he was still super hostile towards anyone for any reason. He'd start sheet for no reason more than anyone else, including Winter. When I look back, I really cannot see any redeeming qualities about his personality.

 

Going back to Winter, I do not believe he is Klav level of horrible. Yes, he went off a number of times. Yes, he was hostile a number of times. However, I don't think he is truly a bad person. I think he just has a really short fuse, which resulted in the member many see him as. However, like I said earlier, I bear no ill will towards him, so, this is mainly my own views.

[vla1ne]

Klav being a mod at any point in time would have been genuinely terrifying and one of the worst decisions the site ever made.

 

Klav is an example of a member who should never be unbanned under any circumstances. Even if you take what happened with me out of the equation, he was still super hostile towards anyone for any reason. He'd start s*** for no reason more than anyone else, including Winter. When I look back, I really cannot see any redeeming qualities about his personality.

 

Going back to Winter, I do not believe he is Klav level of horrible. Yes, he went off a number of times. Yes, he was hostile a number of times. However, I don't think he is truly a bad person. I think he just has a really short fuse, which resulted in the member many see him as. However, like I said earlier, I bear no ill will towards him, so, this is mainly my own views.

winter was not bad, he simply held opposing views to the majority of this site, Even those of us who held and hold no ill will towards him have had multiple verbal spars with him over numerous topics. the dude is basically a one-man argument that started many a conversation on controversial topics (most notably the abortion threads). what many people saw as abrasive, was literally him simply expressing his views. the only thing separating him from many other people on this site was that he spoke his mind bluntly, and his views were often the opposite of the popular opinion of this site. yes, some of the time he was wrong, and stomping onto a dead horse, or derailing something,  but he also brought about new conversations, and had a separate view that allowed discussions to evolve further (excluding abortion topics, which we should already know to avoid like the plague if we aren't prepared to deal with a full on discussion).

 

my stance is that winter was neither toxic, nor did he deserve to be banned.

sure he had an agenda, who cares. so does everybody else, hell, if i didn't have RL to tend to i might have jumped onto his agenda's bandwagon just for shiggles. sure, he was an jabroni, but who cares? half of you shot right back at him for better or worse, and yes, he was wrong some (maybe a lot) of the time, but none of that, even altogether, is worthy of a ban, and winter never took such things to any magnitude that was deserving of a ban. in fact, i personally instructed him how to take things just beneath that point, instead of leaping across the line as he once did. and he has done so successfuly, slowly improving the way he debated, and trying to hold his tongue for the newer or more sensitive members, he deserves to return, because his ban was simply annoyance at small things that were of no real consequence. If you can't, or didn't wish to handle winter, then don't engage with him, and if he engages with you, politely decline. it's that simple, he didn't attack people out of the blue, and if you read back, rarely did his own tone rise if his opponent's tone didn't.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

winter was not bad, he simply held opposing views to the majority of this site, Even those of us who held and hold no ill will towards him have had multiple verbal spars with him over numerous topics. the dude is basically a one-man argument that started many a conversation on controversial topics (most notably the abortion threads). what many people saw as abrasive, was literally him simply expressing his views. the only thing separating him from many other people on this site was that he spoke his mind bluntly, and his views were often the opposite of the popular opinion of this site. yes, some of the time he was wrong, and stomping onto a dead horse, or derailing something,  but he also brought about new conversations, and had a separate view that allowed discussions to evolve further (excluding abortion topics, which we should already know to avoid like the plague if we aren't prepared to deal with a full on discussion).

 

my stance is that winter was neither toxic, nor did he deserve to be banned.

sure he had an agenda, who cares. so does everybody else, hell, if i didn't have RL to tend to i might have jumped onto his agenda's bandwagon just for shiggles. sure, he was an jabroni, but who cares? half of you shot right back at him for better or worse, and yes, he was wrong some (maybe a lot) of the time, but none of that, even altogether, is worthy of a ban, and winter never took such things to any magnitude that was deserving of a ban. in fact, i personally instructed him how to take things just beneath that point, instead of leaping across the line as he once did. and he has done so successfuly, slowly improving the way he debated, and trying to hold his tongue for the newer or more sensitive members, he deserves to return, because his ban was simply annoyance at small things that were of no real consequence. If you can't, or didn't wish to handle winter, then don't engage with him, and if he engages with you, politely decline. it's that simple, he didn't attack people out of the blue, and if you read back, rarely did his own tone rise if his opponent's tone didn't.

just because he took an opposing view doesn't mean he wasn't also an jabroni who easily resorted to personal insults and intentionally causing problems where none exist

[vla1ne]

just because he took an opposing view doesn't mean he wasn't also an a****** who easily resorted to personal insults and intentionally causing problems where none exist

opposing view: not against any rules of this site

 

personal insults: rarely were they used by him where they were not either 1) thrown out first or 2) thrown back shortly after. and many of the rest of the things you are calling personal insults, were either facts that you (and by "you" i mean others as well as you) merely took offense to, or something you misinterpreted. in my time here, i have demonstrated as much, within the very topics where he was called out on it. and if you have any that you would like to use as evidence (and the context in which they were used) then i will gladly do so again. not to say he never uses personal insults, but much of the time, it's less "directed at the person" than it is "the person taking it personally."

 

problems where none exist: this falls back to both my "politely decline" comment, and my "his views differ from yours" comment. You have completely different views to winter, on many a topic, were no problems exist for you, there may well exist problems for winter. that is the essence of "differing views". yes, he stepped out of bounds with said problems on occasion, but never, to any degree where he was deserving of a permaban.

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

Thank you v1aine for your level-headedness.

 

I want nobody, mod team or otherwise, to think this issue is over, because it remains unjustified and the wrong thing to have done, regardless of the set of problematic processes undergone leading to it, which I'll expand upon later. 

 

You may have noticed at this junction or any previous one that I and a number of others are currently not following the universal rules to not complain about moderation in public. There is historical context for why that's the case. In practice, "staff has final say" is neither realistic nor sustainable as a principal or rule. The staff's unity depends on their shared sense of purpose based on their observations of the active member base that they have always been a small portion of on this site. Any unorthodox action taken by a staff member demands the scrutiny of all other moderators, and so any invocation of "final say" is then subject to the "final say" of the rest of the staff. This rule fails to take into account the staff's capacity for self-reflection and critical thinking that takes its root in the staff's purpose. Any staff member who believes the staff's purpose is to antagonize the member base will not last long. The staff has to have a unified understanding that they exist to serve the member base and admit that the members have as much say as mods have, or the staff will fall upon eachother. I've seen it happen time and time again on this site. This rule is as much of a problem for the staff as it is to the member base, and because it's problematic in general it should be discarded. 

 

In bygone times, this thread would most assuredly not have made it past the first page, but as you can see it's been tolerated this far, and for them to reverse their precedent would be inconsistent. The mods slowly but surely invoked "staff has final say" less and less as new mods sought to differentiate themselves from bygone tyrants and dark-age mod teams. While this is the first rule listed, it is seldom invoked or enforced nowadays, and for this the current mod team is to be commended. I do consider it necessary for this clause to be excluded from a redraft of the rules in the near future, but for now that's been the understanding.      

 

Nevertheless, the time has come where criticism of staff action is as necessary as ever. I for my part have no intention of "pissing off", "shutting the funk up", "sitting down", and/or "sucking my thumb" about this ban because it was wrong for so many reasons and it's vital for so many reasons that we reverse Winter's ban. If the mod team would like, they can invoke this tyrannical bygone clause at any time and I'd be powerless as Winter to stop them. That's a risk I can't afford not to take at this point. 

 

It wasn't Zai who caused the ban. What he did was get member's opinion on if the action would be okay. That is not on his own agenda or bias. That is through the opinion of others and their say. Zai basically did the opposite of acting on his own bias by getting information from other people. He didn't even pull the trigger on the ban, he didn't do anything with that. Zai isn't motivated for anything other than the better atmosphere of YCM, which a survey was conducted through the means of other members. He had nothing to do with the ultimate decision.

You're focusing on the wrong sheet here, using Zai as a catalyst because you don't seem to actually understand what is going on here. Stop acting on your own accord if you don't have all of the information. Shut the funk up, sit down, and go suck your thumb. Stop acting like a damn child after that. This shouldn't be about Winter's ban. That was going to be done at one point or another. It was only a matter of time. How this should change is how the mods conduct sheet like this again. Sure, Zai and Dad started this in the shittiest of ways, but Zai has taken action in the mod forum for different proposals. He isn't acting on bias. He is acting on majority rule. funking idiot.

 

I go back to Dae's rant here because I feel it's as indicative of how the mod team really feels as anything any mod has posted here, and that is why Zai, Night, and evilfusion lined up behind it as "making valid points albeit in spite of unnecessary hostility". But the fact of the matter is, no such valid points were made, for which Dae's desperation should've been a clear indicator. The main issue he took with me was that I "didn't seem to understand what is going on here", which in his subsequent post he diluted to "it doesn't even seem clear what you understand and what you don't". Why? Because he was assuming what I knew and attacking me (quite rabidly at that) based on those assumptions in the midst of telling me things I did, in fact, already know. Also included as a "valid point" was his assurance that Zai himself had "nothing to do with the ultimate decision", which is contradicted by Zai's own previously given account that he was involved. What makes this all the more irrational is that Dae acknowledges Winter's ban as "the shadiest thing the mods have ever done" (I wouldn't even go that far), but is more concerned with who's to blame than seeing the "shadiest thing the mods have ever done" reversed, which it so easily can and should be. Should I have gone after Zai? In hindsight, still yes, because he was the one advocating for Winter's ban at the time and I was responding to him specifically not because I thought he was an easy target, but because he was there making the very unconvincing argument that the ban was not a knee-jerk reaction. I don't have any delusions about Zai being an "easy target" as evilfusion characterized him. He's not, and I doubt he'd appreciate that characterization (if I were him I know I wouldn't). He could also ban me in an instant with the entire forum's blessing, I've no doubt in my mind. Although he's the mod team's sacred fledgling and although Dae thinks so highly of him as to believe he's to be exonerated from any share of the blame for the ultimate decision (shadiest thing the mods have ever done) and is only motivated for the better atmosphere of the site, how can Zai be exonerated when he agreed to the ultimate decision? When he's here advocating for the ultimate decision? One thing Dae was right about is that the mod team as a whole is to blame for this (the active team, anyway). I do not care about apportioning percentages of the blame to each moderator, I'd rather not blame any at all and have Winter back (the reason I'm here). Dae doesn't seem to think that's possible, citing the age-old argument that Winter's ban was long in the making and more or less inevitable because of his general tone. That's not true, and that's what I was trying to point out to Dae in drawing the comparison between his tone and Winter's. The fact of the matter is, I wouldn't ever want to see Dae banned. He ultimately did receive a warning, which I understood to be the proper and automatic procedure set in place for posts like his, but it did nothing to make me happy. I consider Dae a key contributor to GFX, a passionate guy who does care, an often funny member who means a lot to a number of people here and is no less than a valuable member of the site whose presence I'm glad for and his absence would create a void, though he may consider me a "funking idiot" (and I'm sure he does, he told me so in no uncertain terms!)  He responded that he probably would be banned eventually, and that was missing the point: Winter should be unbanned.

 

I think it was because it was at the top of the page that my calling Zai biased and telling him to lead the charge to reverse the decision drew such ire from so many. After Dae's tirade that Zai should be exempted from culpability, notacleverusername also stepped in to say Zai was blameless, Winter was bad at YGO, that respecting him was bad for my mental health, and that other forums were worse than this one. Okay. Night then stepped in to say that Zai was not just blameless, but wasn't even acting of his own volition! Okay. More on that later. Night then said that someone said some members said "why isn't winter banned on the discord/skype already lol?" - for the record the discord/skype are moderated entirely independently of YCM proper and punishments don't cross over anyway - and a survey was taken amongst members (who?) on Discord as to whether Winter should be banned forever on YCM proper because that's logical. So they proceeded to leave Winter's fate on YCM to a Discord Survey of an Unspecified Number of Dubiously Sampled Members, people who amazingly *all* bore such an animosity towards Winter that they wanted him excluded forever from YCM (which is depressing because Winter definitely wouldn't say the same of them), and determine Winter's fate on YCM it did. If I'd been sampled, if v1aine'd been sampled, if Aerion, Black, hell even Dae or the equivocating Giga'd been sampled, if anyone sans merciless vengeful pettiness and/or a meek adulation of the status quo had been sampled it wouldn't have turned up unanimously condemning Winter to the chair. Though some of us aren't on Discord! - one might exclaim. Sure, but we shouldn't have to be because *the Discord shouldn't ever play a role in determining who gets banned on YCM*. Night proceeded to cite this as proper procedure (dude), a hoop the team jumped through when they didn't have to (true), and 3 hours of discussion then took place amongst moderators, and THEN they permabanned Winter. Somewhere along the line Zai was strong-armed to contribute as he did (not acting of his own volition), which would be a problem in of itself if it were true, but Zai does actually possess the free will and autonomy not to do any dirty work he doesn't want to - his contributions to this thread suggest he wanted to. This is the YCMods' laborious and proper procedure that in no way involves Winter or specifies a way he can avoid what you've had in for him for a long time coming (no, that does not make it better). Sure, there was Dad's warning that "there really is a lot of stuff that's piled up that you should be permabanned for already and your next major offence would result in a permaban" (which made no sense to begin with) about 6 months ago (which made no sense, where punishable minor offences come up you curb them right then and there rather then ignoring them so the member doesn't know he's in the wrong and repeat until you retroactively have enough minor offences for a death by a thousand cuts), but if we're to take that for the reason then Winter would have had to have committed a major offence, and he didn't.

 

Winter's last actions:

Shard's thread about this place being a police state arose, and initially I thought was ridiculous because it resulted from what was a ultimately a 3-point warning (reduced from 6). Shard had crossed the line between anti-Islam and actual racism the likes of which the forum has seldom if ever seen before ("the Arabs are awful funking neighbours, goat-shaggers, a clockwork creature, etc"). For the record, the anti-Islam stuff is fine and should be fine because that's an ideology, but nobody can control the race they're born into and that specifically is what made Shard's recent rants awful. Winter expressed his agreement with Shard, as Winter had been pushing anti-Islamic sentiment for quite some time but never anti-"the Arabs" sentiment, yet his agreement with Shard was his final action here. Yes, it's been denied here, but I have no doubt in my mind that this did contribute on some level to Winter's ban, especially given Dad's previous warning that a permaban would result from Winter's next major offence. Yes, Winter did criticize many mod team actions and was a thorn in their side, yes he felt the mods were out to get him. He was not wrong to. Roxas personally told me when he was a mod that he wanted to see Winter banned and was lobbying for it, something I didn't tell Winter because I wanted the Winter-Roxas tensions, that had plenty of political motivation, de-escalated. I wanted for neither Roxas to be demoted nor Winter banned. Ultimately, both happened.  

 

This whole event points to many systemic problems in the site, some old and allowed to fester for too long (YCM's current rules are still a very light redraft of decade-old rules designed to be purposefully vague), and some new resulting from a changing in the guard of the mod team and a totally understandable lack of historical perspective and context. Given Black was the one to start this thread, it's hard to think this all would've happened if he were still a moderator. There are any number of things that could've been different that could have prevented this.

 

Yet I'm still optimistic.  

 

This still can and should be undone. 

[Phantom Roxas]

Yes, Winter did criticize many mod team actions and was a thorn in their side, yes he felt the mods were out to get him. He was not wrong to. Roxas personally told me when he was a mod that he wanted to see Winter banned and was lobbying for it, something I didn't tell Winter because I wanted the Winter-Roxas tensions, that had plenty of political motivation, de-escalated. I wanted for neither Roxas to be demoted nor Winter banned. Ultimately, both happened.  

 

This whole event points to many systemic problems in the site, some old and allowed to fester for too long (YCM's current rules are still a very light redraft of decade-old rules designed to be purposefully vague), and some new resulting from a changing in the guard of the mod team and a totally understandable lack of historical perspective and context. Given Black was the one to start this thread, it's hard to think this all would've happened if he were still a moderator. There are any number of things that could've been different that could have prevented this.

Alright, I've wanted to minimize my contributions to this thread, because you're right, my efforts to ban Winter were politically (And personally motivated), so I want to stress that what I have to say here should be taken with several grains of salt, as I can only offer my personal interpretation, for whatever that's worth, and none of this should be taken as definitive, factual statements.

 

Like you said, it's hard to think that this would have happened if Black was still a moderator. Feel free to criticize my handling of anything involving Winter, as I am not necessarily interested in saying much in the way of my arguments with Winter, as everything that needs to be said about the both of us has already been said, and far better than I would ever care to admit.

 

Black was already planning to step down, but it was expedited so that he and I were both demoted simultaneously. I blocked him because, quite frankly, I was frustrated with him, so rather than post in the mod forum anyway, or raise issues with one of the other mods, Black posted a passive-aggressive status, which he admitted he did precisely so I could see it, and I made the mistake of taking his bait and being hostile in return, so issues that we had largely kept within the moderator forum (With exceptions) bled into the public, further escalating tensions.

 

Now, how does this relate to Winter? Well, whereas I was excessively proactive in trying to punish Winter, Black was remarkably lazy and lax. He genuinely got angry every time it was suggested that Winter should be punished, and Black was mostly trying to shut people down, or say that if someone was upset that Winter was being rude to them, then it was on that person to grow a spine, suck it up, and take Winter's insults, but Winter didn't need to change his behavior to be nicer in return. Black opposed any and all effort to hold Winter to a standard where he could be accountable. Black criticized people for pretending to have the moral high ground, even though Black himself was also pretending to have the moral high ground, then claimed to totally never be doing that. Black wasn't bothered that Winter was doing anything wrong, but he was definitely bothered by the people who pointed out when Winter was in the wrong.

 

I understand that I was far too passionate in wanting Winter banned, and Black was so focused on my passion that his push to get me demoted was just as desperate as my push to ban Winter. What started as a Winter-Roxas feud essentially became the basis for a Black-Roxas feud.

 

I'm not a mod anymore, and I still got what I wanted, and Black's not a mod anymore, so he couldn't stop the one thing he kept trying to shut down at every possible turn. The issue isn't that "there was absolutely no showing of competent effort to remove him" (I mean, aside from my efforts to remove Winter being the exact opposite of "competent"), just that people wanted to remove him (Or at least hold Winter to a certain standard), and Black didn't. This thread is just an extension of complaints that Black already had before we got demoted.

 

Sure, there are a number of things that could have prevented this. But Black pushing the mod team to hold their thumbs up their butts would not have been the best way to accomplish that.