THE SPACE PIRATE: First Hunt Demo (Important Update, 04/17/2023)

[Kinsie]

This needs its own thread instead of being stuffed in a corner of the Gameplay Mods subforum.

[22alpha22]

I don't have all the facts so I won't even pretend to know who is guilty or innocent, but seeing how the mods/admins have behaved when they think no one is looking is completely outrageous as far as I'm concerned. As much as I don't like the Doom World forums, I think it may be for the best if I return there and stop using the ZDoom forums, such a shame. I will wait a bit and see how this plays out but I don't have much faith in it.

[cubebert]

I agree; even as someone who doesn't log into the forums that much, this deserves its' own thread.

Cardboard Marty, I want to thank you for bringing this into the public's attention. Words cannot describe how disappointed I am with how this situation is unfolding, and as a somewhat recent member of the forums hoping to share my work someday, I'm saddened by the lack of transparency that's been around a lot of communities lately.

[Tapwave]

Hey, I don't show up on the forum very often anymore, but I felt that if I had to do one last post, it'd have to be here.

First I want to add an element of context: I induced Marisa's confession. I was one of the first people privy to all the information she presented.

I urged her to make it public - Entrapment or not, she had clearly participated in the situation instead of shutting it down like she should have. She will deal with the consequences of her actions, and I believe that being removed from practically all communities is both important for the safety of their users, but also for Marisa's attempts at growing as an individual if she pursues this choice.

I strongly believe that it is more important than anything to be honest and admit any and all wrongdoing. If she is responsible, and she was, then the absolute bare minimum expected is for her to be truthful about what she has done. I have not really noticed anyone paying attention to that. What with the recent discoveries of speedrunners in our community just hiding that stuff under the rug, I find it mind numbing that Marisa had been nothing but candid about the whole situation, and instead, other people started doing the lying for her.

This is what the core issue is in the end for me. Marisa wishes to be repentant and find the help she needs to grow as a person. I wish her good luck on her endeavor, but also a long break from being public facing, for the safety of the many people she had been involved with, as well as herself. What I'm personally incensed with and feel absolutely needs to be denounced is the general attitude towards blame and responsibility in this community.

I have been in this community since I was ~13, and have grown looking up to many individuals here, most of which are part of the moderation or administration team. However, shortly after I was made moderator of the ZD-RPG part of the board, and given access to the Moderation Control Panel, I started acutely noticing a slow shift in the practices after Randi stepped down and handed the keys to Rachael.

The first thing that concerned me was the increasingly aggressive tone of moderation actions. To me, Weasel's brand of moderation was something to look up to, and I regularly found myself quoting him when it came to practices. Instead, what I began to see was moderators expressing themselves in an exceedingly arrogant and condescending manner, less like adults de-escalating conversations that went too far, and more people who believed themselves to be in lofty positions of power where they could berate and scream down dissenters. This started with Shadelight and became worse over time.

The longer and angrier rants from Rachael, who is supposed to be the main authority here makes me feel bad for Randi, who was notoriously quiet and non-confrontational, who kept themselves surrounded by competent people they could trust with that. I sincerely believe Rachael should have done the same. I understand the world is getting increasingly hard for us LGBTQ+ people, and many of those rants were targeted at people being bigots, but it's important to consider that being part of a team also allows you to delegate if you feel targeted.

The snide comments in the ban logs confirmed to me that this was less anger and frustration as it went on, and more some sort of sadistic delight at stepping down on others.

This whole shebang is not about Marisa. Marisa will handle Marisa now. What needs to be addressed by this community is the encroachment of an autocratic, control-hungry administrative team which primarily seeks to exert its influence over as many communities as possible, by being the final say, by being the place to post projects, by effectively holding content creators hostage. Rachael has all the keys. The keys to the forum, the keys to DRDteam, and has demonstrated that she can have you gone if she wishes to, without following her own set rules.

While technically this is her forum and platform and she can do whatever she wants with it, I also think it's eminently disrespectful to Randi, Graf, and all the other developers' work to see this sort of constant drama and firestarting surround their life's passion, and the work of so many great and creative people. So many are being hurt by this, all because the moderation team is either unfit for the job due to personal reasons, incompetent because it's convenient, or outright malicious.

It is utterly devastating to me to see the team sabotage Marisa's efforts to absolve herself through a sincere effort to find the help we often deny to people we are often eager to put into a death cage for the rest of their life. It is devastating to me to see the heinous attitude many of our users have towards people with mental difficulties, such as the acerbic response towards Kynikoss, who was in immense distress and yet immediately reduced to being an insane, loud person. This is what angers me the most about this community. I had to grow up finding myself because nobody would have helped me. I had no medical support, schools and parents did not care.

Today I realize that if I trusted this community as a mature place like I originally envisoned, I might have been permanently damaged far beyond my expectations.

All of us need to put in more work to accept and understand and help the various complex minds that make up this community feel safe and grow as individuals.
All of us need to work on making this place better managed so that we'll stop harming people like this again, or making it possible for people to be harmed in impunity.

Rachael and the rest of the mod team: I implore you to think about this sincerely and either make a legitimate effort to improve your transparency and attitude, or step down. This doesn't have to be a firestorm. All that is needed is honesty, candidness, and a willingness to change. Marisa showed it, you tried to suppress it, but it's about time you take after what she is capable of doing in spite of your actions.

[Kinsie]

Rachael has all the keys. The keys to the forum, the keys to DRDteam, and has demonstrated that she can have you gone if she wishes to, without following her own set rules.

Weasel pays all the bills and as such can have Rachael out on her ear yesterday if he wants.

If.

[Darsycho]

The first thing that concerned me was the increasingly aggressive tone of moderation actions. To me, Weasel's brand of moderation was something to look up to, and I regularly found myself quoting him when it came to practices. Instead, what I began to see was moderators expressing themselves in an exceedingly arrogant and condescending manner, less like adults de-escalating conversations that went too far, and more people who believed themselves to be in lofty positions of power where they could berate and scream down dissenters. This started with Shadelight and became worse over time.

The longer and angrier rants from Rachael, who is supposed to be the main authority here makes me feel bad for Randi, who was notoriously quiet and non-confrontational, who kept themselves surrounded by competent people they could trust with that. I sincerely believe Rachael should have done the same. I understand the world is getting increasingly hard for us LGBTQ+ people, and many of those rants were targeted at people being bigots, but it's important to consider that being part of a team also allows you to delegate if you feel targeted.

The snide comments in the ban logs confirmed to me that this was less anger and frustration as it went on, and more some sort of sadistic delight at stepping down on others.

Yeah, gonna be real, I've definitely been feeling this way for a long while, there's been a good number of times Rachael's handled shit in a way that has honestly pissed me off, even having concerns of this sorta attitude happening in my threads for some reason or another. And this whole situation has not made me dislike it any less.

[The Toxic Avenger]

Rachael has all the keys. The keys to the forum, the keys to DRDteam, and has demonstrated that she can have you gone if she wishes to, without following her own set rules.

Weasel pays all the bills and as such can have Rachael out on her ear yesterday if he wants.

If.

With things that happened in private (I don't know if I should elaborate, it was stuff kept private from the server Marty mentioned, "double private?"), I cannot trust her with any sort of modding powers anymore, or potentially ever.

You should not employ an admin that goes for the throat with little provocation and holds grudges that they're willing to rip holes in the community over. I'd sooner trust oldschool Metalhead as an admin again, and that's saying a lot.