Dies to Removal

Look, I'm getting too frustrated posting back and forth with you, N_S. I'll let Gals work with you guys for a while.

Nai, you guys never mass-banned people to the point that a thriving subforum died at your hands. That is a first in 7 years of MTGS history.

What we are asking is a modicum of goodwill, not that you come here antagonizing people and calling them liars.

What we are asking is for people to throw new ideas into the arena like Galspanic and Azrael have been doing, not having people rehash the same argument over and over like a broken record.

N_S, before I stop responding to you, respond to me:

What do you want from me?

I've told you where we're going beyond what we've done before. You're asking for goodwill. So what goodwill do you want? What are you asking for that doesn't go over the line for us?

I'm trying to get you guys to appeal so we can get you back on the site. There is someone in this thread who's saying appeals doesn't work, and citing a situation that never actually happened. It's my job to show that it didn't happen.

You don't have a job here on this site, unless posting and involving yourself in the community is a career path (we welcome this choice, btw). Ignore
obvious trolls because that's what got us off track the last 80 times we've tried to have this conversation. Shalko is making up a pile of lies and using incendiary language and that's distracting you from telling us to make an appeal thread.

Not distracting me. I was just going down post by post and was trying to ensure I hit just about everything. I'm still about two pages behind.

The issue that many have here is that you're a banned member asking for favors. No other banned member (and there have been a small handful of discretionary banned members, you can include them in this) would get an agreement for a different way to get an appeal through. You're asking us to understand that the situation is different for you guys. This sort of thing is new and has never happened before, yes. But you also need to understand that you're asking for something way, way different than we've ever done before for anyone.

You need to understand that you're asking for special treatment.
And that's a big problem for a lot of the staff.

Nai, I think the thing that you're missing is that a "sort of thing" that "is new and has never happened before" by its very literal definition in special, so trying to then go on to tell us that it doesn't deserve special treatment because everything else about it is special word for word based on your above description doesn't make a lick of sense, nor do the ingrained attitudes of the stickler diehards you're speaking for saying you shouldn't be here talking. Talking isn't special for you, I think we can all attest to that. Doing something would be. We are asking you to do something.

But what you're asking me to 'do' is to flat out unban you. Which basically isn't going to happen. So what 'special' thing do you want? What is it you're trying to get, Thrillho? What I see is 'unban us without appeal or discussion among mods', which just
isn't happening. I see questions of public appeals, which may happen. But there's no real consensus on what it is that's wanted.

Yes. It's something new that hasn't happened before, which is special. But so is EVERY discretionary ban we issue, and we've done a handful in the past year. And we don't do this for -every- discretionary ban. So you're already getting special treatment.

Please don't derail the discussions here by lying, thank you.

Nai, stop.

Just stop.

You are antagonizing people accusing them of being liars and rehashing the same arguments.

Stop. This discussion is headed in the right way and we need to keep bringing constructive propositions to the table. That's what Azrael and Galspanic have been doing. Again, you're not helping in the little bit.

Thank you for taking this into consideration.

I'm trying to get you guys to appeal so we can get you back on the site. There is someone in this thread who's
saying appeals doesn't work, and citing a situation that never actually happened. It's my job to show that it didn't happen.

This sort of thing is new and has never happened before, yes. But you also need to understand that you're asking for something way, way different than we've ever done before for anyone.

You need to understand that you're asking for special treatment. And that's a big problem for a lot of the staff.

Like you're admitting the circumstances of the banning are totally exceptional, but still insisting that it is treated in the standard way? You are contradicting yourself.

It's like you're not even trying Nai. I've told you before. I'm interested in meeting halfway the
bridge, not reaching your end of the bridge. I told you already that telling others that we need to meet at C) when options A), B), and C) are on the table, is not how you conduct an sincere negotiation

If you're going to ignore my posts, I'm going to ignore yours, and that's basically all there is to it. I'll retype what I typed earlier:

You're getting to appeal before the one year marker. In many cases, this will actually be the second or third appeal before that marker. You also have multiple admins here saying 'show us personally that you've changed so we can tell the staff that you've changed'. That's already us bending over backwards to help you get a successful appeal through.

You're asking for more special treatment, which the staff (and I mean other people have voiced this issue) does not like. At all.

Clearing out an entire subforum whose permissions once gave a normal user access to Administrator control is not an ordinary thing. I know I have the bias of being a part of it, but we were involved in an exceptional thing. It's not every day entire subforums get put up on the chopping block and cause a huge struggle on the main forums (testing grounds/extendos were the only other example of this IIRC).

I see you're going post-by
post in response, so these posts I'm making are going to drag that whole activity out. I'll cut myself off here. Thanks for taking the time to respond to us.

I'm aware. What I'm saying is that it's not ordinary for an admin to go -to- a banned user and say 'okay, let's work together to get you unbanned' either. As-is, usually when someone's banned and appeal denied, that's it. End of story. So having appeals re-opened, and coming in to guide and coach as to 'this needs to stop, this would be okay, this needs to be on MTGC' is already out of the ordinary.

I know it doesn't sound like much. But understand, on our end, this -is- a huge thing.

How did KCW get unbanned then?

KCW put up an appeals thread one year after his previous appeals thread. He made his appeal, we told him the appeal didn't seem valid, like the previous year. He came back, answered all of our questions in a way that satisfied us, and got unbanned.

Guys, if you ever go for the appeal process, just say "Scumbag made me do it" in case people call you out on something. You have my blessing.

That happened to me and the Process that Nai is proclaiming lead to me being screwed.

For God's sake Nai you guys didn't even have the courtesy to let me know my appeal had been denied in the APPEAL THREAD , People refused to answer my questions and it was obvious from the First Post that they didn't give a shit about me.

I highly doubt anyone will go through that waste of time and
effort but if they want to try it's on them.

If you're going to lie, can you at least make it a good lie?

It's been five days since I made the request for a better screenshot. You have been online since then (12-8-12 at 5:59 pm CST). The staff is taking your total silence, including the lack of request for time or update on what you are doing to gather this information, as an unwillingness to cooperate.

As such, the ban will stand. You may appeal for unbanning one year from your original ban.

You posted a screenshot supposedly to absolve you. I asked you to also include the timestamp of the post in the screenshot so we could verify that it related to your banning. I told you failure to do so would result in your appeal being denied. Five days later you had made no posts, but you had been on the site, so I made the denial official.

Please don't derail the discussions here by lying, thank you.

Some of these are decent points. But there's also the reason we actually make it democratic: having a number of minds on the situation gives us multiple viewpoints and helps to ensure that we're getting it right.

There's five admins. If we are the ones dealing with the unbannings, not only is it going to take a long time for all of us to get our information together, but there's also the question of bias. There's the question of getting the conclusion wrong. There's the question of 'if they screw it up, who do I appeal to? There's the question of fairness there.

All
important issues to consider. And I would never tell you not to consult with lower staff.

But at the end of the day, you guys are in charge of this. You're the admin, it's your province, and you've put in the time and effort to become better informed than most of the staff on these issues.

They don't have cause to bicker with you about special treatment - you have discretion to deviate from normal measures as you see fit, so long as your objective is the benefit of the site. You're the leaders - you write the rules of procedure for yourselves in line with your overall duties and objectives.

It's not the province of the lower moderation crew to joggle your elbow and dictate what methods you can or cannot choose to carry out the best interests of the site. It's not mine, either, for that matter. All that any of us can do is to attempt to advise you/talk your ears off.

But at the end of the day, no one but admin and owner have the power to dictate your methods,
your procedures, or your scope of responsibility, and you have exactly as much power as you choose to assert. If you think this is the right way to handle the situation, explain that, have a conversation about it, but don't let social or political pressure from me, them, or anyone else get in the way of exercising your best judgment.

I mean clearly, you're still having the conversation despite the grumbling, but there's been a series of suggestions that lower staff have stymied despite admin having contrary ideas about what was the best way to handle it. And I think in a number of those situations, admin had a more intelligent view of what was best for the site that they allowed lower staff to veto for political reasons. But the balance of power has swung too far on the scale between autocracy and weak central leadership. Lower staff are exerting more influence upon policy than they should be allowed - you've ceded a great deal of your own authority to these people, to the point that you're crippling
yourself from making politically controversial decisions that may nevertheless be necessary, in your own best judgment, for the good of the site.

Don't let others stop you from voting your conscience. I know you're each capable of making courageous and tough decisions in the face of adversity, you've demonstrated that plenty of times. But it seems like you conceive of your leadership role or leadership style as more limited and more restrained and low-key than it is in truth - or ought to be.

The 5 admins can all be sitting there saying "hey yeah, this is a great idea. Let's unban him" and the staff and a number of more involved users would rise up. Do we just say "fuck you I am right you peons?" Or do we talk about stuff to make sure we don't miss anything? I prefer the latter, but apparently getting input and gauging where people are at makes us corrupt when you don't agree with it

You never stop talking and
seeking to improve your information - but you also have a duty as the person in charge to take the best action that you, not the group, determines is available. If you're uncertain or ambivalent, it's fine to delegate. But if you let subordinates run rampant over you when you're more capable of making the decision than they are, you're no longer acting as a leader. You're just a mediator in a room of disorganized people.

Part of the job of a leader is persuading others. If the five admins get together and decide something is a good idea - then the next logical step is to convince the rest of the staff/users, or to be convinced by the staff/users after talking it over. But it's not to cave in to a decision that you don't believe is good for the site, against your own good judgment.

What you're suggesting is a very, very different way of doing things than we've done for probably the better part of the past year. Perhaps I should remind you that one of
the reasons we've gone to this 'democratic voting' method is because the upper staff decided, without the lower staff, to close the Gutter?

They both have evils and downsides. We're already getting accused of being corrupt, and that's -with- the staff largely in agreement on any given situations.

Why do you guys need to pick us one by one in some cave? Aren't we discussing already?

Who is moving this to a cave?

Nai has requested multiple times that we take this ongoing discussion to individualized hidey holes in the MTGS appeals subforum instead of outside in a public space.

I've asked you to make the appeal 'official' by actually making an appeals
thread on 'Salvation so start things up, and mentioned that stuff you said here may not be taken into account by mods over there that don't want to use this site.

The mods were already upset when they assumed we made an appeals thread for Madding without an appeal from him (the two threads went up very quickly one after the other). We're not going to make an appeal discussion without an actual appeal.

Again, I would love if we could explore alternatives in order to reach something more of a B) case scenario. As opposed to private individual appeals on MTGS, do you think something else could be worked out? Maybe we could strike an agreement if some new ideas are brought to the table?

The issue that many have here is that you're a banned member asking for favors. No other banned member (and there have been a small handful of discretionary banned members, you can include them in this) would get an agreement for a different way to get an appeal through. You're asking us to understand that the situation is different for you guys. This sort of thing is new and has never happened before, yes. But you also need to understand that you're
asking for something way, way different than we've ever done before for anyone.

You need to understand that you're asking for special treatment. And that's a big problem for a lot of the staff.

Posting on a website that isn't MTGS isn't an exceptional thing, nor is saying, "You should make an appeal thread to appeal your ban." I believe Pendulum asked as much earlier in this thread. While I'm sure Pendulum in his wildest fantasies believes he holds as much sway over MTGS as you do, you are the one with Administrator access and the aura that comes with a bold tag and username.

What I'm doing right now is something close to if you came into my Gamestop and got kicked out for, let's say, causing a problem with another customer and things getting rowdy. Right now, this is as if I learned through the grapevine what other establishment you were going to, went there myself to offer my apologies for how we mishandled the
situation and then asking you to come back to the store so we can have the situation resolved.

Not quite an identical situation, no. And this -is- the internet. But this isn't a site I'd be coming to otherwise, simply because MTGS is the only site I really use for magic. I'm only here for you guys.

I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass, I'm trying to relay how deeply ingrained these thought processes are and how they are harmful (and sort of based on a very twisted non-logic if you stop and think about it) just generally, not even specifically to this dialog.

And I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass either. I'm saying that this is something that, to my knowledge, has never been done for any banned member before.

But, understand, to the staff, this is basically out of the ordinary.

Well Nai, do understand that our bannings are basically out of the ordinary since we were all discretionary banned.

So, how do we fix this exceptional situation in a non-standard way? Can we work out something better than the standard appeal process?

Are you planning on answering this post Nai?

I
had already posted something to the effect, so I figured the post was answered. But I'll answer more thoroughly:

As is, any appeal is most likely going to be the second appeal for that person. That's already 'better than the standard appeals process'. They're also getting an appeal before the one-year marker, which is the usual wait time before an appeal. This is also 'better than the standard appeals process'. So we're already looking at going further than usual.

If you have ideas that aren't 'simply unban everyone', feel free to comment.

Clearing out an entire subforum whose permissions once gave a normal user access to Administrator control is not an ordinary thing. I know I have the bias of being a part of it, but we were involved in an exceptional thing. It's not every day entire subforums get put up on the chopping block and cause a huge struggle on the main forums (testing grounds/extendos were the only other example of this IIRC).

I see you're going post-by post in response, so these posts I'm making are going to drag that whole activity out. I'll cut myself off here. Thanks for taking the time to respond to us.

I'm aware. What I'm saying is that it's not ordinary for an admin to go -to- a banned user and say 'okay, let's work together to get you unbanned'
either. As-is, usually when someone's banned and appeal denied, that's it. End of story. So having appeals re-opened, and coming in to guide and coach as to 'this needs to stop, this would be okay, this needs to be on MTGC' is already out of the ordinary.

I know it doesn't sound like much. But understand, on our end, this -is- a huge thing.

Since I am the only one here who has not been dragged through the appeal process mud in the past, I am willing to be a sacrificial lamb to the appeal gods. Nai, I cannot stress this enough that I expect my appeal to be handled swiftly. I feel I am owed that courtesy after being forced to write up a document that has already been written ten times over in these conversations. If at any time I feel my appeal is being ignored or used to rake me over the coals for staff amusement, I will ask it be dismissed and accept my ban. I won't be subjected to a kangaroo court, as kpaca calls it.

Thread's already updated, Sene's assembling the information you already posted to him. Just keep in mind it takes a bit for everyone to get in and post, and
people do discuss over the application of the rules. That's usually what takes so long. We go back, investigate the issue. Then people will make their various stances known. People will talk back and forth to show 'this is how I see it, this is why they should be unbanned/banned'. And we make the final statement when the discussion has ended and we can see the definite spots of everyone.

So please, be patient. We're not ignoring anyone. Some of these, and especially when we're talking situations that get heated, take time for all of us to get together.

I think admin's current approach to lower staff putting you in a fairly awkward and impractical position.

Democracy, input, dialogue, back-and-forth - all of these are good things, from an idealistic stand point and a practical one. Giving lower staff a voice in the site's affairs, is a good thing by any of these measures.

However, the ideal of a direct-democratic staff with diffused authority runs into a number of problems on implementation. The chief among them being that a number of the lower staff members often don't bother to engage in a back-and-forth with the people they critique, and don't always care to fully inform themselves about the situations they're weighing in on. Many do. Many don't. But all of them are considered to have equal say,
under this system, despite many of them not having the same pulse on the situation as the people who choose to go out into the field.

Then there's the simple fact of why we have leaders to begin with. We believe that the people at the top (or on their way up) are the best suited to guide us through contentious and difficult decisions. Making decisions in an insular system isn't good practice. But inevitably, not everyone is equally suited to help make decisions for the group. There are people who are more knowledgeable, smarter, better informed, more far-seeing, more wise - whatever the case may be. We're not all equally gifted as decision-makers on every given subject, not by a long-shot. A good leader will take the input of his subordinates into account, and be guided by it, and they ignore feedback at their peril. But the other part of their job is persuading people to adopt a more informed viewpoint, to get people to follow where they lead, to inspire trust in their judgment.

I would be
perfectly content with a structure in which everyone who wants to vote on the bannings is required to read the full dossier and engage in actual back and forth with the people they're evaluating. That would bring people up to a minimum level of competency to make the decision. But one of the reasons we have leaders is so that they can wield that knowledge and responsibility without making everyone take the time to become an expert on the subject, and trudge through interminable debates.

Sometimes it feels more like you and maybe Sene are more comfortable being mediators than leaders, Nai. It's a similar skill-set, but not always identical. It occasionally feels like you're being trying to be too democratic - which may sound off-color, but is entirely possible to do. We've gone from an autocracy all the way to the articles of confederation, when what we need is a federalist system.

Some of these are decent points. But there's also the reason we actually make it democratic: having
a number of minds on the situation gives us multiple viewpoints and helps to ensure that we're getting it right.

There's five admins. If we are the ones dealing with the unbannings, not only is it going to take a long time for all of us to get our information together, but there's also the question of bias. There's the question of getting the conclusion wrong. There's the question of 'if they screw it up, who do I appeal to? There's the question of fairness there.

It helps a little to work with other people and have them vote in on it. That way we can say 'three dozen people looked over the facts and 90% of us agree that...'

It's not a perfect system. It needs work. But right now, it's the system we're working with.

The last time I did that, I posted for IIRC 4 pages to 12-18 total responses, several hundred views without comment, and many posts made in my thread were, in short, "Wait a bit for it." And I did, for close to a month, for nothing.

Your initial posts said you were here, Nai. I have been working with you to this point, but the people responsible for 800-odd views have not come here to apologize for ignoring me, if they even think that they hold any fault for making a not-dialog drag on for so long. They probably don't, and I can't blame them entirely, but it's also not going to give me the good faith necessary to put my head back in a shark tank and just wait to see whether or not I get mauled.

I'm not going to ever claim we're special. We'
re just more users and the only caveat to that is many of us also happen to have been very active in the community, and many of us have also been staff for a not-insignificant amount of time. I think our circumstance -- collectively having been on staff, having this all happen because of one section of the forum that removes us from the greater userbase (defining us by Gutter membership), that we were holders and gatekeepers to important information the very people claiming we are not exceptional didn't themselves have. Those are exceptional things. That is not to say we are exceptional people, but the circumstances we were in -- some thrust upon us, some by choice -- are all exceptional ones. To not see that is incredibly short-sighted and shows that I would not be walking into a group of people looking to move on, as that sort of mentality is based in the axe-grinder sort of headspace. I'm not here to grind axes, I'm here to go for a new career choice that doesn't have me lopping down trees. I would
like to include MTGS as a part of that, as I have a history of building there even if part of that building history is marred by some level of destruction.

Edit: I reiterate a lot of things Scumbag touches on in his post; I hadn't gotten that far into this thread when I responded to it. My bad.

And we made mistakes doing that. Your appeal last time wasn't good. I don't mean that it wasn't good on your side. The actual handling of the appeal was bad. It's something we need to work on as a staff; putting more communication in the actual appeals threads. It's a juggle for us, to give enough information to you to know that 'this is going on, this is the arguments for and against' without violating the confidentiality of those saying it. It's difficult for us to give more than 'Here's a few questions for you. Okay, we got answers, we'll get back to you when we make a choice." We've been working on it, and I've been trying to make an effort on the appeals I handle to
actually give a thorough conclusion of "This is why you were banned/suspended, this is the arguments for your ban, this is the arguments against your ban. This is where the staff is at, this is the conclusion." At the very least to make sure you're more of a part of it.

That appeal was handled badly, and I think I had said as much in the Doghouse thread (or whatever it was) in the Gutter. We're working on making the appeals system better so it does what you're interested in. Which is getting you the responses you need to make sure the appeal is successful.

As for the 'exceptional' bit, I have mods who believe what I'm doing here, right now, is specialized treatment. Coming to you on your turf to try to guide you to a successful appeal. I'd prefer this to be the standard operating procedure for us, and I continue to act that way towards cases I know. But, understand, to the staff, this is basically out of the ordinary.

Get back to work.

Oh, you mean your job for you? Very well.

Hey, Nai, if you were in Kaitscralt's position what would you do?

That's a good question, actually.

In the (somewhat) recent past, I was actually banned from a community I liked for bad reasons. It was done directly by the owner of the community, so there was no room for appeal. I attempted to anyways, was denied, was made fun of (this had been a continual thing for some time, so that was nothing new), and that was it. I got nothing else out of him. I had to meet with my friends at another
location, and I lost some friends in the process because I could no longer reach them. It was not fun.

So I do know where these folks are coming from. I'm sure that the owner of that community had good reasons, in his own mind, for banning me. I feel that I was wrongfully banned, and I was burned when I tried to do anything about it.

That said, if the owner of that site came to me and went 'you know, I still think you were wrongfully banned, but I'd take you back if you showed me that you're not going to be a problem', I'd probably take him up on that. Not for the sake of proving I wasn't wrongfully banned. He'd made it clear that he didn't think he was mistaken. But to simply be back with my community.

So I'd appeal. I'd put everything I could into it to show that 'whatever you believe about the previous ban, that's not who I am, let me be part of the community I care about'.

The staff doesn't unban without appeals. So if you want to be unbanned, that's the way to go. What I'm trying to do is help you get a successful appeal. Part of that is changing the way the staff feels about you and what's going on. You've given Sene a lot of information about why you should be unbanned. Giving that information to the staff could get you unbanned. But not doing so? Just leaves us where we are now.

I've said repeatedly that I'm not just going to unban you, that the decision to unban is one that has to be done by the entire staff.

when I say "you" I mean the staff at large. I always assumed this was clear.

And the staff has basically come to the conclusion that you guys aren't worth unbanning, that doing so will cause more trouble and that we'll be making a big mistake. I'm here to find a way to change that opinion.

So then you guys think we were justly banned. Well, we think you guys are morally corrupt. What I find
surprising is why do you think its useful to rehash the same argument again?

If you want to work with me, fine. But I'm not going to sit here and go 'we have only three options and three outcomes'. I'm not going to make demands and say 'you must do this or that to make this work.' I will, however, say 'this is what you need to do to get unbanned' and 'this is the major hurdles you have to jump.' I will also say 'this is how we can work together to make returning good for you' and 'these are the rules that are changing that will make life better'.

You can beat that dead horse all day long. But it's not going to help you get unbanned.

Your "options" are simply not good enough. If you didn't come here with the will to negotiate I really can't see what are your motives.

You guys destroyed an entire community. That is a very serious issue. Please stop acting like we are the only ones who need to present apologies for what happened.

As much
as you can complain about me being antagonistic (and rightfully so in some way), you're doing the exact same thing. You're not helping either.

Do things your way, then? That's absolutely fine. The folks that are willing to work with me to get unbanned will be over here with me, and you're welcome to join us if you feel like.

Any affinity for any of the maritime lasses, Nai?

Not particularly. Nothing against them, you understand, but there's different wants between me and them. Different underlying desires. For instance, I can't get oxygen from water, so that's already a long-distance relationship.

I've said repeatedly that I'm not just going to unban you, that the decision to unban is one that has to be done by the entire staff. And the staff has basically come to the conclusion that you guys aren't worth unbanning, that doing so will cause more trouble and that we'll be making a big mistake. I'm here to find a way to change that opinion.

If you want to work with me, fine. But I'm not going to sit here and go 'we have only three options and three outcomes'. I'm not going to make demands and say 'you must do this or that to make this work.' I will, however, say 'this is what you need to do to get unbanned' and 'this is the major hurdles you have to jump.' I will also say 'this is how we can work together to make returning good for you' and 'these are the rules that are changing that will make life better'.

You can beat that dead horse all day long. But it's not going to help you get unbanned.

If you guys are okay with the Gutter closing, I'll simply pass that along and we'll process that immediately in preparation for this.

Bannings should occur first and then the unbanned people should discuss this in the right place: the Gutter-Staff pegging chamber, where (hopefully) no one will feel scared of posting. Then at this point we can discuss what to do with the Zombie-Gutter. Otherwise this is just
putting words in other people's mouths yet again.

Having you or another person pass messages is not the proper way of doing things and this has been proven to be very harmful in the past.

I would appreciate it also if Boubouille would chime in here as he hasn't a loaded past regarding the strained relationship. Everytime he was here things seemed to progress in the right direction.

I honestly don't care one way or another. If it's simply "hey they don't care about this stuff can we move on?"

I'm not up for more summits, I'd just like to offer my apologies for being brash and note that there's nothing to be brash over and get back to being a part of a community I've also been a part of for years and move on from this ordeal.

Best way to do that is to make an appeal. It's the best way to show this in detail to the mods who will be making the decision. Include a link to this thread if you like, starting at the relevant posts. That gives them a
ballpark of 'hey, this is where we can see what's changed'. But it's also a place where you can talk to them without them having to feel alienated or ganged up on. If they want to come here to talk, they will.

I do need to reiterate that the appeal thread is definitely a thing here. There's already people upset that the admins are even coming here to talk to you about this, as, to them, it shows that the 'treat these folks as if they are different' (previously known as 'because Gutter') is still live and well. Us skipping the appeals process, posting your appeal for you, etc., would actually be this.

Do you like shark chicks Nai?

They tend to be rather aggressive, so I usually give them a pass.

Why do we have to prove anything to the rank-and-file mods of Salvation? If they won't even come here to learn the facts then how do they have a say in what happens to us? I feel using this thread plus PM's and the file Boubs created should be enough in this circumstance.

Because that's how 'Salvation works.

Because, chances are, if you do something that is against the rules, it'll be the rank-and-file mods of 'Salvation who will have to handle it, not me.

And because they shouldn't have to come to a place where they have been (and could still be) ridiculed in order to find the evidence needed for your appeal.

If you guys are okay with the Gutter closing, I'll simply pass that along and we'll process that immediately in preparation for this.

Thrillho: Yes, that's true. But I know a lot of mods aren't willing to come here for various reasons.

It's not a question of 'impressing with proof of piety'. It's a question of 'showing that the same problems aren't going to happen again'. Many of the mods believe that unbanning will just lead to more problems. More drama bombs. What we need to do is show them that their fears are unfounded, that having you return isn't going to make more work for them.

If this is the issue: there's no Gutter to be at risk for deleting and no prospective Curse sale that is to be overturned apparently threatening the greater MTGS with its perceived white-washing of people's individual
attitudes into one grey bland non-difference. If I want to write the magic equivalent of dick jokes, I have an outlet for it that is not your site and there is no place on your site for me to do that.

As I posted ITT to Boubs, the only evasion I was guilty of was one Rumor Mill post (which was actually substantive) as Hard Gay about the Commander's Arsenal boxed set explaining why it was not the investment people presumed it was. Aside from that, I logged into accounts so I could read what people were saying about me because it's interesting that it's basically open season on someone the second it's perceived they can't read about it (that and I like to hear my own name/username). I was open with Galspanic about my activity when using a gimmick (IE that I wasn't posting, only browsing).

As for value, I demonstrated value to the site even after being banned despite the fact that for all intents and purposes in my being angry about my ban I should have been content to watch bad things happen to the
site (from a human nature standpoint, not a good person standpoint). I messaged Galspanic about an anonymous tip we'd received here about an attempt to hack MTGS through a back-end exploit. Although the details of this pretty much ended there, I let him know that I'd heard some weaver-level nonsense someone was going to pull and hey maybe watch out for it. It can be argued that my analysis of the Commander's Arsenal demonstrated value even though throwing a spoonful of chlorine into an ocean of urine generally cannot clean the ocean up. Regardless, when I am not personally being struck down, I am basically a pretty helpful and knowledgable guy who is willing to help out. I wouldn't have stayed on a volunteer staff for 7 years in boards that needed a lot of work before I started putting in the effort with them if I didn't want to be that.

Then let's show that. That's what I want to be visible to the other mods: that this is the type of thing we can expect. That the major argument
between both sides is gone and won't be returning, that the behavior we don't want to see will be in a place we don't care about. And that you guys returning means good things for us.

i dont believe it because mods shown they cant be trusted

No skin off my back.

I've never cried foul about infractions and suspensions, even my first ban. I've always ridden them out. Only the last one, which was foul, have I been crying foul over. But really, we could go in circles forever about how individuals are going to cope with punishments and nobody will know what happens until something actually occurs. Me, personally? I don't plan on receiving any infractions. I've dealt with enough bullshit for one internet lifetime, thank you.

Then no worries.

On to the other part of your post, I am glad that Kijin's post warmed your heart, but you shouldn't make us feel like we need to impress you with some sort of proof of piety. We're not trying to join a church. I've been trying to give advice
to Sene about how to make Salvation better over the last couple months, a lot of it is archived on the mini-chat here at this website for you to dig up. And not just lynching staff members, either -- I took my time and laid out how I would handle CI and the CI Warrior's, because I think it is a sickening cycle that goes on there. I think both the staff and the Warrior's revel in it equally, and I think the staff sub-consciously uses the CI drama as a way to keep busy summitting and re-writing pointless forum rules instead of making the website better as a whole for the Magic community (front page, articles, banner, etc.). Sene knows what I would do with CI and it is pretty drastic, but I don't expect any of the administrators to give my ideas a second chance because not drama-bombing over the forums makes their jobs seem much less important. But, to wrap up this mini-rant, even as a banned member I've tried improving Salvation, I just do it through the staff member I have access to. In sum: CI is the
problem and should be overhauled under the same rules as the Bad Trader Forum.

CI needs to be overhauled, yes. That's what we're going to work on.

It's not a question of 'impressing with proof of piety'. It's a question of 'showing that the same problems aren't going to happen again'. Many of the mods believe that unbanning will just lead to more problems. More drama bombs. What we need to do is show them that their fears are unfounded, that having you return isn't going to make more work for them.

Honestly, the first thing is putting up appeals threads, saying 'I want back in, this is why, and this is where I"m going from here'. Those PMs you gave Sene? Helpful. Show them to the mods. You already fall under the suspension rule at this point, so you're good.

The next question is likely to be 'why don't you just undo it then'. And the answer is 'because we're
not just undoing it for everyone'. There are some members who got hit with suspension evasion that actually were problematic who actually need appeals. And this is a consistency thing. No favoritism, yadda yadda.

But, Nai, you cannot only lend your eyes and ears and smiles to Kijin's of the world who make your stomach flutter with butterflies. That is just not fair.

That post is simply what made me believe it was time to try again. That's all.

Good point. In my defense, that was less 'leaving the discussion' and more 'Hey, Curse, info please?'

@Kijin: The main question here is how to show to the staff that you guys intend to be valuable members of the community, that what has past is over and done with, that you want to be on the site and intend to make it a greater place. What you have right now is a few admins who are willing to talk, who are willing to make things happen and get you back in. But, as I said, we work primarily by consensus. We don't want to overrule the majority opinion on you guys. So we need to ensure that the opinion changes. That even the most diehard anti-Gutter mod can see that 'the Gutter is dead, long live the Gutter, these guys are not Gutter, they're just people'.

For example, several times in the very recent past we've found that some banned members have been using gimmicks to browse and post on the site. To the mods, this looks like they're flaunting the rules of the site and ignoring their ban. That's the type of thing that
makes them vote 'no' on an appeal.

I'm willing to work, but I'll admit that I'm not sure HOW to do this. Just that I want to. That post you made? The one that actually got me in here? That post was amazing. It's what I've been looking for. What we need to do is show that that post was made honestly and with, excuse the corny way of saying this, a pure heart. That you mean it.

@Kaitscralt: You'll have to forgive my pessimism in turn, but I have doubts that the first infraction will be met with the same open arms as you're showing me now. It truly needs to be accepted that 'there is no more Gutter, there is only Zuul', that 'because Gutter' is dead, etc. So if an infraction happens, don't simply cry foul. If it's a wrongful infraction, we deal with it. But if the infraction was justified, that needs to be accepted.

As for me vanishing? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the only times I have left discussions has been when I felt unwanted, or that I was being made to be
uncomfortable, in a discussion. I'm happy to be here.

Damn, you guys don't have multiquote.

@Col. Khaddafi: I'm not going to mince words: That's exactly the attitude I'm not going to work with. This is not a 'not able'. This is a 'unwilling'. If you are going to passive-aggressively end a post with 'Was it worth it', I'll move on to the next person.

@Exarion: I wouldn't be here if I wasn't willing.

@ Pendulum: We were having some trouble with spambots and with gimmicks made purely to cause trouble in CI, which is why it went hidden.

@ Kijin: I'm on your website to work with you. On your ground. Not mine. That's the best I can offer right now.

I'm not sure I follow that line of thinking. It's not as if the administration doesn't have
access to the Gutter. Also the Zombie Gutter sucks, nobody wants to post there. It's not on the list reasons I want access to my Kaitscralt account.

From how its been explained to me, it's basically a banner. A psychological 'We have the hill, let's hold it' thing, i guess?

Would you like me to explain what's wrong with this or should I just shut the fuck up?

Edit- @Blackhound: Not kewl, dude. Glitches like that aren't a laughing matter.

I don't necessarily agree with it. But a lot of the problems here has been specifically about that subforum, less about the actual people in it. The entire concept, the posts therein, so on and so forth. So it's natural to think 'well, if the subforum is gone..."

Okay, I gotta know... for the lulz, you understand... how many of the people who have said that have posted in the ML/RRR?

Just to clarify, I'm trolling here, not trying to, as Harkius would say, get a dog into this
fight.

I'm not sure I understand the question?

I'm not sure I follow that line of thinking. It's not as if the administration doesn't have access to the Gutter. Also the Zombie Gutter sucks, nobody wants to post there. It's not on the list reasons I want access to my Kaitscralt account.

From how its been explained to me, it's basically a banner. A psychological 'We have the hill, let's hold it' thing, i guess?

Would you like me to
explain what's wrong with this or should I just shut the fuck up?

Edit- @Blackhound: Not kewl, dude. Glitches like that aren't a laughing matter.

I don't necessarily agree with it. But a lot of the problems here has been specifically about that subforum, less about the actual people in it. The entire concept, the posts therein, so on and so forth. So it's natural to think 'well, if the subforum is gone..."

I'm not sure I follow that line of thinking. It's not as if the administration doesn't have access to the Gutter. Also the Zombie Gutter sucks, nobody wants to post there. It's not on the list reasons I want access to my Kaitscralt account.

From how its been explained to me, it's basically a banner. A psychological 'We have the hill, let's hold it' thing, i guess?

No offense Galspanic but it looks like an iPhone or something really damaged that post, I am having trouble figuring out what you are trying to say.

He's saying the Gutter is a McGuffin but most of the staff see it more like Chekov's Gun.

I don't think McGuffin is the trope you're looking for.

Basically, he's saying that the Gutter is just bad at this point. The actual subforum. It's dead and lifeless as is. And the staff is worried that, should the members of the Gutter return and the Gutter still exists, problems will reoccur.

So, whats up with the sally server ? or are you not allowed to say ?

From what I understand, Curse is having some server issues right now. A few servers went down and our site was on one of them. A few other sites are down. They're getting people on it, from what we were told.

@Nai: My apologies for intruding on your conversation, but I, as curious bystander, am very curious what changes to the Gutter's behavior you would like to see, specifically and, as you say, just personally.
Also, WB.

If you're asking what do I want to see as a precursor to the the banned members returning to 'Salvation? I'm going to put it bluntly: an attitude adjustment.

Yes. Mistakes were made. You guys are upset that they were banned from the website, and I'm very well aware of that. You believe that the bans were invalid and unjust. I'm aware of that too. I'm also aware that I'm not going to change your minds on that, so I'm not going to try.

You guys don't trust the staff. Fine. The staff doesn't really trust you
either, so we're on about even ground. I'd like to change that. It needs to be understood that the staff doesn't have the same goals and ideals as you guys hold, and that, at the end of the day, we're the ones running the site for better or worse. Should it be for worse, you can bet your ass we're going to get replaced. And I can't speak for my entire staff, but I know that I enjoy talking to people and, when they have ideas that make my work better, I take them and run with them. We've done it a lot over the past year. Things like suspension/ban appeals. The suspension evasion rule. Things like public moderation applications. Things like five admins instead of three. These are good suggestions. And I think most of them were suggested by people outside of staff.

It needs to be understood that we're not trying to hurt 'Salvation. We're trying to nurture it and make it grow. And, oddly enough, as many complaints about our way of doing things as we get, we still continue to grow. We still have more
users than we had yesterday, and have steadily gone up. We've made mistakes. And we need to fix them, and learn from them. And we're working on that.

It also needs to be understood that the team working today is not the team working six months ago. I see a lot of 'I dislike the staff because of something that happened six months ago or more'. Odds are? 50% of the people that made that decision are no longer on staff. Turnover has been high for the past six months for various reasons. Distrusting the staff as a whole is simply the way to upset yourself.

So I'd like us to work from positions of mutual understanding. You guys want the best for the site. I want what's best for the site. Let's work together. There are things you want that I can't give. That's a shame, but it's understandable. Now you have a site of your own, and you can have those things that I can't give you. So let's work from that basis: I'll give you what I can. What I can't can go here.

If you want to know the things
I can't give you?

Casual trolling, as has been shown in this thread by Kijin? Funny as hell. I do the same thing in League of Legends and I rib on my friends fairly consistently. But... Not good on 'Salvation.

Making fun of each other and ribbing. Great in small groups. But what's fun and amusing to you may not be to other people. The casual bashing you guys do in here, which is done in fun, looks like flaming to others. And we can't always know.

Things like that.

I had left this site alone for a while after my last post here, since I didn't feel I should intrude any longer. Az talking directly to me on 'Salvation had me curious. I decided to look over here, and was pleasantly surprised by this.

Current MTGS administration:
I'm sorry I used my anger over my friends being banned and mutual misinformation (we both operated on information we had incorrect, this fact is a wash) in an attempt to undermine negotiations for selling your website to curse. The beautification process you guys were enforcing looked to me to be harmful to the site beyond just gutter discussion, but I overstepped my bounds by assuming the worst, conflagrating the situation, and letting my emotions get the better of me.

I am sorry I have at times not been more patient with you and have lost my patience with you (and other members). Your responses and decisions are slow and processes generally
move glacially, but there are far more people on MTGS than just me and many of them are trying to talk to you individually, including a mass of others also active in discussions alongside me. Many times talking to you I feel ignored, and as has been mentioned often, it sucks to be made to feel like you don't matter. Still, I could be more patient instead of less patient.

These are the issues I believe I've had with you collectively in the past. I want to move past these issues I've been at fault for. This is my attempt to move past them.

Kijin, I hope you're being honest in this post and not showing it in jest. Because it's a sentiment I've been wanting to see from anyone for quite some time.

I'm going to speak for myself here. I'd like to make it very, very clear that this is me. Nai. Not the staff. I speak for myself and no one else.

I believe we made a lot of mistakes. I know I did; as much time as I put in trying to work on the problems between the Staff and the
Gutter, I absolutely failed to talk to you guys enough. Kijin has brought that up with me time and again. There are many times where I got caught up with the heat of the moment and spoke to my fellow staff members and came to a conclusion before speaking directly to the people who had information I didn't have.

I do know that some actions that I supported were done off the cuff, with little thought but 'how do we respond to this'. Some actions we took were made because we were in a situation we didn't know, with not enough experience to handle it. Some actions we took because we were misunderstanding the situation, the requirements, the requests. Some actions we took were based on faulty facts and conclusions.

Some actions we took snowballed because of other actions we took.

Some of the bans that were applied were done while I was offline, so I can't speak for those. These include Kpaca and Kijin. There were others that were done with me giving the go-ahead from my corner, from where I was
sitting. You're going to ask me that, if I think we made mistakes, why don't we unban? From where I sit, even now, even looking back, I do believe the bans were the correct action, that they were valid, based on the information at hand at the time.

So the next question is why not unban now? And this is, again, where I speak only for myself. Where I cannot speak for my fellow staff, because they have their own opinions. As you are well aware, we work by voting in the mod lounge in major issues. Everyone has their voice.

On many of you, I've voted to unban. Kpaca has had my vote for a while. Madding, with a recent set of PMs he's sent to Sene, has had my vote

For me, right now, unbans rely on one very little thing: If you guys return to the site, are we going to be back here again? Are we going to have these issues? Can we rely on you to work with us to make the site better? For those that are actively following CI (and I know there's a few), we've been making changes.
Working to better the site for everyone. Suspension evasion is no longer such a hard line anymore, as an example. And we're still working. We want to make lives easier. Both our own, so we don't have to worry about being hardasses, so we don't have to work so hard, so we can get our fun back, as GR so eloquently put it. And we want to make your lives better. So you don't have to look over your shoulder as you post, you don't have to worry if you're going to get in trouble with 'the man' for posting. I don't want that on 'Salvation. For you or anyone else.

The major problem I have, right now, is the attitude that's going back and forth. The staff distrusts you guys, you guys distrust the staff. It feeds off each other. It escalates. It leads to situations like this.

There are things that you guys want that 'Salvation can't provide. The Gutter, plainly, is probably one of those things. You guys now have this site, which is growing rapidly and has a wonderful foundation, to do that in. You
can make your own rules and set this up the way you want. You can have your cake and eat it too. But you have to blow the candles out here, because I don't want to clean up the mess there.

Are you willing to work with me?

Where was this level of directness months ago?

I've always been as direct as I can be.

If you're talking about Curse specifically? They asked us to say nothing. Repeatedly. Nothing about the sale, nothing about them in relation to the Gutter. Given that they were going to be the new owners, we thought it best to listen.

And Kijin, what would you like me to say to you? Before you were banned, I was about to contact you guys. I was asked by GR to let him do it instead, so I said yes. He thought the news would be better coming from him. After your banning, there was nothing for me to say.

So I'm not sure what conversation you were expecting on my part.