[FaeLenx]

Speaking on my own thoughts regarding this matter. A long while ago I was responsible in at least some small part in figuring out where and how to best fit players into Geladyne's structure and story. A player made an app, and someone else in the discussion said, 'This player has had issues. I don't think we should allow that.' My response was simple.



It was not my job to gatekeep based on the opinion of someone behind the counter. My only concern was making sure they had a place that didn't infringe on anyone else's place. They were shifted from one position with rather wide arching authority to a position with the same prestige but less intrinsic authority over other players. Anyone and everyone got basically the same treatment. 'I want to be a general in the army!' turns into 'General of a specific part of the army that other players can choose whether or not they're in the direct line of command of.' I'm keeping it vague for a reason. Because in that quote I lied.

The GMs, at the moment, didn't remove a lot of people who could have been very dangerous to me or other people if given even the fakest, non-existent authority. They didn't remove people who very often made the threat to bring the danger they presented to other people beyond just the confines of the game, discord, and community. At the moment, I was clouded by some false idealism and putting on blinders to ignore the problems present in the community way, way back then. They never addressed it then.

But they've more or less done it since then. And it's been hard. Completely unrelated people to every conflict rise up in search of curious answers to problems that aren't theirs in an endless effort for voyeurism and scandal. The people who were banned have, up until lately, felt positively encouraged to go and outright lie, gaslight, or argue the basic fundamental existence of facts like 'what even is a death threat on the internet today?' And people who are uninvolved will take the stark, resounding silence from the other side who either do not care to out the delicate facts or debate common, reasonable existence of facts as somehow some admission of guilt. And if you're the party who did the original reporting, you're not going to jump into a cesspool or people arguing to plead your case.

So to the point, the community had been inundated with people who very probably were too comfortable in doing whatever they wanted because getting banned from SL2 used to be a nearly impossible meme only for client crashers and donation shop dupers. Now that it's transitioned into an environment of constant RP and semi-forced interaction, they can't really afford to just let people keep being awful to each other with the assumption that whoever doesn't keep themselves at arm's length deserves whatever they get socially since everyone can just go keep to their own groups.

TL;DR: I readily assume that these bans are completely justified because the admins would need to have actual blinders on to somehow miss someone they should have banned a year ago. Also, there's no statute of limitations on the internet. If someone was an actual caustic problem then the only thing giving them a pass on it does is give other people an excuse as to why they thought it was okay to be a caustic problem. I'm not sure who got hit for something belated but if your only defense was 'it was so long ago' then it might be good to just take the short break for what it is.

[Balor]

I left SL2 almost a year ago now, wordlessly.

I left because the community had turned sour, gaggles of individuals who did not like one another were now all forced to share the same space, fight over the meaningless clout attributed to roles and regulations. I watched my friend group I had protected, loved, and adored essentially slowly disintegrate as the stress overwhelmed them. They were miserable every time I spoke to them about SL2.

So I left, because problems that had existed for nearly 3 years by that point. Were allowed to run rampant. All of the problems that made me left never went away by the time I returned, they still existed within the pockets of the world they had all just scurried from one corner to the next. Harassment, bad attitudes, hateful remarks, metagaming, gatekeeping. All left to fester.

Many people will come around with the opinion that, these bans are cruel and unwarranted. Or that the context, and evidence is unfounded or too old to be punished. However how long were problems on SL2 allowed to fester? Much hate will be attributed to newer players, in newer congregations, forced to nestle within themselves. Like so many pockets before, having to speak in confidential circles about their experiences. Because justice for the harassed would never be served. Because of reactions from the community like this, which vilify victims.

I speak of this with confidence because I am one. I was harassed. I watched Iggy get harassed by my own harassers, until he quit the game for six months. I wonder what prompted them to feel so volatile that the only answer was to lash out at myself, or Iggy. For not playing ball to whatever expectations they had of us. I was harassed for being friends with persona non gratas because they treated me as an individual well.

I have a huge ban thread here because of the potential backlash I felt I'd face for getting an Eventmin at the time punished for comments and actions that had spanned months by that point, some of which I was only made aware of thanks to the kindness of friends pointing out to me. Actions I had spoken and tried to deliberate and compromise on. Because I felt I NEEDED to defend myself. When I was the victim.

I've had people treat my wife and I differently because somewhere, somehow a rumor was started about us having an "OPEN Marriage." Because my wife had a ship with someone /not/ me. People thinking they could sexually harass her, or pursue both of us in disgusting perversions. It is the reason, that my Wife refuses to log on to SL2 or even engage with it's community. Because no one could respect her or I as people.  And that is not including the pedophilic advances made towards her on her first week in the game, playing a youthful character. That by all rights should've soured her on the game and it's community.  

I will not claim innocence, I've fucked up too. I've been rude. I've been antagonistic. I have been in the private servers. I have been in DM's. I have been good, bad, ugly, wholly me. I am who I am and I refuse to compromise on the person I wish to be. But overall I wish to be better than I was yesterday. I wish to be less angry, less sad, less resigned to shitty situations. Just because that's what we or anyone is used to. Nor did we think we'd see justice for it. For other friends harassed off the game for opening their mouths. 

A few of my friends were caught in these bans. People I talked to regularly, and wished them the best even the day prior to it all happening. It is sad to see them hurt, or to see them go. It's sad to see their friends go as well. However the reasons I left, were not the new players, or the new pockets of people that now occupy the space of the game. It was the culture, history, and the environment of SL2. That made me leave. 

These bans while perhaps not perfect, perhaps flawed, and while I can see the fallacy of how far we reach back. The truth is that if this is the precedent, and we are to expect more expediency in punishment moving forward? More direct punitive action, and warnings? I will gladly watch fires get started in the effort to give people the confidence to come out with a report and feel safe to. If these are the first steps to a healthy community? Then I will take that first few imperfect steps. For the sake that maybe, just maybe. With a more proactive GM Team, and an actual adherence to that much maligned "No Tolerance" policy? 

There will be less people who were hurt, like I or my Wife have been.

[Shadbase]

(oh boy who's ready for another one of my adhd-fueled rants)

As someone who also pretty much quit wordlessly maybe a monthly before all of whatever the fuck is going on in this game at this point, there's a lot to be acredited to Anhita's claim of 'sickness', but it stems from a lot more than just these bans. Like a majority of more major issues that happen in SL2's lifetime - the bans are not the cause, they are a symptom. If people deserved it or not is really subjective, and everyone will have their opinions slathered in biases or not. The banwave hit people I loved and I have disdain for, but regardless of that I'd rather look at what objectively happened - and that's a problem the community has had since 2013.
I just want to put out a perspective piece, not on the bans - because I don't know the matters behind them beyond what I've been told from some of the banned and deem myself not in the position to talk about them - but why this community needs genuine help and the troubles I've gone through in the past 10-ish years.

Witch hunts have been common in this place for years. Whether it's a small mob against one person, or a person against the world practically, we have them. Deserving or not does not matter - they happen, and they shouldn't. I don't care if it's the world's biggest asshole, your grandma, whatever the hell you want it to be, it should be handled civilly and not with pitchforks and two-faced bullshit, and that goes for staff and players. To find out why I wasn't even allowed to think about joining the Sigrogonian Guards periodt, I had to basically ask Lokus to go through the fire for me, and what was it for? A post I made in 2016, where I was likely 16 years old; an unmedicated neurodivergent child, where I criticized the GM and the guards for the handling of a situation poorly - where everyone was either bootlicking or rioting. I'm 24 now; it's been 7 years, and that bias against me is still strong even when most who have known me and still play know that I have grown tremendously - and even have the right medications that allow me to think through what I write most of the time. And at that - I'm still not allowed to know who has this beef because they want to hide behind the shadows so they can live without the guilt on their high horses, or whatever it may be.
It's a microcosm of what people have been saying in this thread, and what I fear they may continue to say: people will hold these inane grudges for anything you could have done a decade ago to one day have it bottled up and suddenly you end up with 15 'harassment' charges, 3 metagaming charges, 7 sedition charges, and 1 count of public intoxication for good measure, all without being allowed to give your side of the story, or even context about what happened. You are at the mercy of the person with the complaint or the grudge.
The only time this should even count  if the charges are old is if you've been caught being a 'child enthusiast'. Unforgivable.

Like Drez said, I'm not exactly innocent - very little of people on SL2 are. I get excessively angry in autistic fashion due to said autism, I get hung up on little things that're said in passing about me or my loved ones, I get to points where I have little patience for people if I consider something important. I've even complained about the people I care about because they hit these little triggers. I try my best not to for the sake of others, but I end up venting that onto a handful of people I feel like can understand what's happening and take me through it from an outside perspective so I go back into the situation with a clearer head and my own problems sorted. I don't want to be this irritable, sad person who can be horrid to be around. I was able to do that for awhile before Korv's launch, and I left so that way I wouldn't revert back to the 2010's habits I had and make people miserable - and now the most I'll get mad about is walking Raigen the boomer through how to mod FFXIV.

I have some further experiences to explain why I've always felt so strongly about how difficult it is to really is to speak up, or bother to explain, or why I get so heated about the community and the 'superstition' of staff inaction, but they get into a bit further with sensitive topics, so:
First Spoiler: Non-con mentioned.
Second Spoiler: 'Child Enthusiast' and 'game ending' are mentioned.

When I first started playing, I actually had a similar experience as Drez's wife. I was 13, playing a relatively  young character, and I pretty much almost got raped (yes, it was unwanted) by a notorious SL2 creep until I logged out in a panic. I didn't know what to do, and these were Skype days and I didn't know anybody. Didn't even know who the GMs were. Even if I did, I don't think I would've said anything - or even had proof because I didn't know how to screenshot something. I feared for the next week about retribution, if I would get banned for ERP or something despite the fact I didn't because I'd already been told about how poorly issues can be handled. I deleted my entire character because I was just so scared and had to go back to an older character. People still do feel this way, have these sorts of feelings playing SL2. Maybe not under the same circumstances, but I know they do because I've seen it.

I was groomed by a pedophile on this game for 5 years; I was 15-16 and he was 21-22; he knew I was totally underage. When I turned 19 he decided he wanted a new girlfriend and abused me with intentional panic-attacks and neglect trying to get me to go away. He went to your community leaders and did his best to drag out what should've been our private problems that didn't exist on-game to them so they would witch-hunt and ostracized me. They even talked about their witch-hunt on game (in the unhidden say chat and looc, no less), which was caught by someone grinding and sent to me to basically show that I needed to get out before this game ruined my life.
But I looked at all of this and knew that nobody would help me even with logs. I was an isolated transboy at the time who was constantly misgendered on SL2 by most, sometimes even directly on purpose, and told that I had to be as toxic as possible to fit into what I called '4chan's roleplay game' because that's how the community felt back then. I quit for 2-3 years because being on SL2 made me feel physically sick to my stomach. I had to go to therapy, and I was diagnosed by four different doctors in both Michigan and Oregon with true, full-blown PTSD. It stopped my life, and I wanted to kill myself. If it wasn't for four different people... I might've. I slowly healed, especially with the help of two of them. I found some level of peace, beyond the PTSD episodes that would haunt my waking world and my dreams.

I returned in 2021 because of Raigen getting into an IC relationship scuffle and it hurt my heart to see that he was now my boyfriend. The community I came back to was the opposite of what I remembered. People were kinder, more connected with each other. I felt comfortable going outside of smaller spaces like pubs and houses because I didn't fear that someone would look at me and judge me off of anything they just saw at a glance. February 2021-pre-Korvara was one of the best times of my life. I reconnected with old friends, I made so many new ones, everyone understood the plights I'd suffered and were patient with me. I had fun adventures, like none I'd ever been allowed to experience in 'old' SL2. Me and Rai now have enduring characters that we've adored to where it's the only thing we privately RP anymore, with 30+ AUs and counting.
This was the SL2 I'd wanted. It came with its hiccups and spats, but they didn't feel like they were always so world-ending. I felt like everything was brand new, that I could begin again and leave behind the past trauma to make better memories.

Speaking generally, a month after Korvara's launch it slowly started to roll downhill back to where it was. Cliques were reforming back to where they were (or as y'all call them now "private servers"), people going back to being anti-social, then the community returned to being its harsh shitshow that it always was where nobody was trustworthy anymore. Friends that I'd cared for suddenly turned into tyrants with a lust for power and attention. A majority of the friends that I'd made suddenly disappeared from my life with no warnings, questions about if we could find a way to RP again mostly given an 'eh' answer. There were a few I understood why, others I never did. Going back to Sigrogana was a non-option with even Dev discouraging even touching it anymore.
It'd all come back to how it used to be. But this time I just didn't go with the flow and return to my old ways. I had complaints and probably voiced them in less-than-civil ways at times - but we've all done that. With my neurological problems it can be even harder than most, but I just wanted to sit it out most of the time because it was either 'not my problem' or I 'didn't have an important voice'. Days of nobody beyond Raigen, Shield, or Toasty coming to RP with me even when I asked. Being told that the fact I was being actively ignored by the town I wanted so badly to be a part of was just 'hysteria' or whatever. Having to leave for 1-2 weeks for a break for my mental health due to the outright hell-designed stress of this community and coming back to my slaved-over place being taken over because 'lol free player house for muh erp' or whatever without even being told or asked the entire time because it was clear nobody cared. Having to be told by two totally different people I'm now being flagged as the suspect of some horseshit barely-thought-out hitpiece with no evidence just because I "seemed likely because I've been playing a long time" as if information and stories aren't passed around like a plague during the 1300's in Europe on this game.

The way I see it, there has always been a 'sickness', but I'd liken it more to cancer.
It went into remission and the world was bright... and now it's come back because of a recurrence. Old cancer cells still remain, and now they are feeding and growing. This is not down to a single person as a cell - there are no scapegoats to blame for all of this. It is a collective problem that you all must fix, or you will cannibalize each other and the game itself.

I want this game to continue. I want things to be as good as they were. I want the community and the GMs to be in a happy relationship with each other. I want to be able to have problems just be talked out, no matter how old or how small because someone is brave enough to take the step. I wish for nothing more than to decide someday that I want to try and play this game again and make new memories I can cherish for years to come, more huge walls of RP that I save to my HD because they mean just that much to me.
But I can't spend every moment of my energy every day trying to help fix a community that wants change but doesn't do a whole lot to change it - everyone just 'lives' with it, and when complaints are arisen - polite or rude - people lobby against it because it doesn't fit their narrative of events or 'hurts' their friends. Threads like these are good steps, and that's why I always respond to them even when I'm not that active on the game - I care about things here because this was effectively my childhood - my escape from a wholly abusive life. But it never leaves these threads. Nothing is ever done outside of these; all of these good points raised go to die under either a locked thread for 'discourse' reasons or die out because the problems are now 'manageable'. To quote one of my oldest friends from this game: "It's a problem when Eternia is receiving refugees from SL2 [and not the other way around]."

If you don't want to keep contributing to this cancer: just start being kinder and thoughtful. Communicate your problems and issues - involve the GMs as a last resort and not as an ultimate weapon to win all your wars. Politely correct others who are out of their lane without just slobbering weak insults at them ala 'uhhhh yr just dumb and wrong wow go touch some grass lol'. Embrace all walks of life, and don't judge others for doing what you're not into. Help others who are struggling, but encourage them to learn to do things themselves without holding their hand. Encourage each other to be doing your best, and to take breaks if you need them for any reason. Forget all of that FOMO you might be worried about having - the game will not wait for you, but you don't need to chase the game to have fun. Don't treat this game as a job as a player or else it's not worth bothering with in your free time. If it's not fun, why bother?

Just start having some love for eachother even in tiny parts and you'll start seeing things truly I feel, because it's very obvious how little everyone on this game has liked eachother since the beginning.
Thank you. I'm sorry.

[Noxid]

Never knew you mate but good luck. Post SL2 life is great although I do sometimes get the urge to make some silly anime character from time to time but it's not really worth it for me. Y'all that are staying, all the best.

[Croakie]

Given zero discission over the reasoning, people refusing any sort of discussion, being immediately denied any opportunity of appeal or to even give my side on the points, blocked by the person who dished it out, The entire situation reads as an unapproachable scenario.

I spoke on it last time, ill say it again. How can you expect change or improvement when you offer no clarity or discussion, and you punish and admonish attempts to defend ones self. The ultimatum is "You know what you did. Accepting it is the only option. Anything else makes you in the wrong, especially trying to defend against empty points" is atrocious. A majority of the charges, given the limited amount of info, are disingenuous, as there is hardly any other way to take them when they do not value the accused side of the story.

Time to wait and see if the GMs will prove their bias and ignore the other Toxic Private group that made itself known for their targeting behavior. Unless they just get a pass for committing the same exact crime they saw as so deplorable.

[MuniCuz]

I'm gonna add my side of experiences regarding the recent events that Croakie brought up, because this is something I desperately need off my chest before it plagues me further. I will have to clarify, these are my experiences alone in trying to talk with few members of the GM team regarding it all. The severity of it is likely far from anything anyone else has felt, but regardless, if I am by any means in the wrong in some elements likewise if Croakie is wrong, I have come fully prepared to accept that. Sadly, neither of us were never informed in what things were incorrect from the people in question, and I do wish they actually chose to given that was implied. So here's what I have gotten on the matter:

Croakie is a friend of mine from a long while ago, and this was before I joined SL2. I had shown interests to SL2 from seeing other friends of mine partake in it, including Croakie, but I never got into it until years later and now. I have been here for a month, so keep in mind, I have absolutely no complete knowledge of what happened in the past for so many policies and rules to have been reshaped, nor do I know the full picture of the events, but I will go by what I know since it was all I could even find. Until last week, I had been sharing a little bit of SL2 moments I've had with Croakie, but only recently been explained why Croakie never joined SL2 again. Croakie was permabanned and was uninformed about it, basically shadowbanned forever. Naturally, I wanted to look into it myself because it felt absurd on how that came to be.

What I found so far - and I repeat, bare minimum I could dig up - was a few forum posts regarding the ban in question, which was placed to be a week long ban. This was from three months ago. Since I really wanted Croakie back into it since I always enjoy having a good time with my friends and that I was also really convinced that the community as it was now was pretty welcoming, I figured that the 3 month time was a good amount enough to reflect and change, and even Croakie herself acknowledged that she made some fatal errors to move past. That much faith I had in Croakie about it. So I sent a modmail about it and wanted to ask why this decision was made to make it go from a week to permanent. Granted, that isn't how modmail works, and that is on me for mistaking it. What came after however was by far one of the most indignant conversations I have been met with in this community before.

I have to mention now that I am fully aware of the policies that have been provided, and I wholeheartedly try my best to understand why they've been put up. Individuals who feel targeted may face even worse backlash for speaking up in a more public manner, and given how severe online harassment can get, this is something I could get behind. What I can't get behind is if the policy is used in a manner that feels less about protecting others and more in a sense that feels condescending, and this is where my negative experiences begin. When I was responded to, I was explained that third parties cannot be detailed about the ban in the case of protecting the victims. I can get behind this, I didn't need to know the story in detail. What didn't feel right was that there was denied any part of context whatsoever, literally as in not saying a smidge of info like "their ban was increased to perma because harassment" or anything. This did not come across as right, because the policy should invoke protecting the victims and avoid retaliation against them, not outright refuse any clarity on a case. Something as basic as "they were banned for (reason)" shouldn't come across as info that could lead to anything harmful is what I thought. They'd only talk to the banned party in question. So I brought up they never did in those few months gap, and their response to Croakie that I got to know about left me really ill:

   

This is not clarity. It did not address any of the points, much less explain the reasoning behind their decision in proper. All we got was an extremely condescending response in the form of "accept what you did wrong", without properly addressing what was done wrong, and that is where the core issue lies. I'm sure there would be some concerns about this being "oversharing info", but when there's barely any context to grasp from this, I doubt it would cause any harm by all means.

The part that especially made me feel ill about it was the part of "riling up fellow players", because this permaban as far as I am aware was only responded to up until recently when I came up with it. This only left the implications that me, coming up to the GMs on my own volition to know what made them choose to make it a permaban, was considered as a player being riled up. If that was considered "being riled up", I could only imagine how that would leave other small negative responses to interpretation. But most of all, this made it feel like it was my fault they responded so aggressively to Croakie, something that I can't explain with words on how dreadful I ended up feeling afterwards.

I figured I'd at the very least try to contact again and at least have them talk to Croakie regarding the matter to actually explain it to her regarding why it became a permanent ban. If the policy about transparency prevented me any basic context whatsoever, then at the very least it is expected to the main party who faces these accusations. I didn't expect any talk of "hey, let's negotiate your ban" of any kind, only a "hey, let me tell you why you're perma'd", because that would be the most they could explain without going into detail. But all that we were left with was a lack of communication. Croakie was never contacted and nothing had changed. This is not okay, and if they are supposed to have any justification behind their decision, they should at the very least inform in some sort of way why. 

I want to put this out as well, I've seen more public reports go wrong before, and a community was absolutely desolate by the end of it due to how mishandled it was. It was an extremely poor response from the owner that escalated things, and most I know have chosen to not belong in that community. But this is different, because I trust the GM team to be far more capable - and I am 100% sure they have proven to be - which is why this becomes so much more upsetting. They have every capability to make things clear, but have chosen not to for reasons I can't understand, policy or not.

A decrease in transparency is fully understandable given the circumstances, but an absolute lack of it is too much. I had come fully prepared into these conversations that if by all means Croakie did do something permaban worthy, I'd put commitment into letting Croakie change from that. But when there's no discussion or contact about why to begin with, there is no progress that can be made in the first place. An expectancy in improving without the actual reasons just feels hollow.

It was from this point on that I sadly lost my faith in the GM team's decision making, when they can't provide some basic decency that, regardless of policy and/or if the person in question did something truly awful, should be a mandatory requirement for understanding their flaws. Just recently, I've also noted regarding some bans that have happened over things that escalated in the past. These reports in question were months apart from now and had only freshly been brought up. Obviously, I won't excuse any sort of behavior, regardless of how much time has passed, like harassment to be acceptable. "Bygones are bygones" can't be applied to everything depending on the severity, and punishment, in some shape or form, is always due. But when you're demanding of change and reflecting on your problems, holding onto these reports for this long instead of resolving them on the go is a rather poor decision in my opinion. Keeping those problems and never actually addressing them until it suits someone to be reported, at a point where that person might've already changed long ago, to slap them with a ban doesn't feel correctly handled. It was also where I realized that they are capable of providing evidence and/or context. They have clearly done it in the past, albeit that there are doubts, but they explained it to the accused people in question. So how come they failed to do that for Croakie?

This is where I felt that the whole argument of weaponized mod reports and paranoia around the community was starting to become true to me. Because if I were to have posted some art that may seem a little NSFW and someone reports it, even after I've removed it and said "yeah, that wasn't good of me", what if that report still passes through and hits me later? What if I have an outburst in general chat due to some personal stress, apologize to all parties involved and everyone moves on, but that still comes to pass into a report? Most of all, what if I don't even get a chance to rebute at any of these points? What if the report is a misunderstanding or misconception over things, but since even the most basic context is denied to the accused, there would be no chance to respond? 

These concerns have led me to not support the Dev team as much as I'd want to, and that is rather upsetting, because I really love the SL2 community. There's only few groups where I have ever put this much investment, art and content out like this, moreso that a lot of people I've known for years are in here. There's also been new people I've met that have made me quite happy to interact with and roleplay around. So can you imagine if by any chance I made one misstep, and someone reports it, that I would be left zero chance to explain and end up getting shoved out of the community? Right then and there, everything I give is suddenly cut off. I'm not saying I ever will, I fully try my best to understand and respect all parts of the situations. But it seems not everyone, or barely anyone for that matter, gets the chance to understand because there's no transparency that leaves us with something to acknowledge. This kind of paranoia does not belong in a healthy community, and if the GM team truly means well, then I wish it was expressed better than the ways things have gone to my experience.

These are just my words regarding the matter I've seen, read and felt, and I hope by all means that it is resolved in a positive result. I hope that a tangible decision, in which moderation and reports are handled, ends up being put out so that a much better balance is put in place, both for the sake of clearing all doubts and to solidify trust into the GM team on multiple matters. Praying the best for the SL2 community and a long and healthy life.

Tl;dr: Croakie was never responded to up until recently to an unexplained permaban, and the response given was left condescending. No basic context, information or any detail for that matter, regardless of how small and guiding it could be, was provided to neither me asking or Croakie responding. Policies should be enforced to protect, not to cut off any communication that could've made a possible mutual understanding. Due to the way how reports are currently being handled, the way I see it, I do not feel that the community is in it's safest health yet, and I pray that may change for the time I stay here.

Peace.
   

[WaifuApple]

I won't reply to all of this, since I don't have much to say, but I will clarify a misconception the post above seems to have. Croakie was not permabanned three months ago, in an upgrade from an existing ban back then. Many have seen those ban waves, and the ban system for SL2 is not very robust. Which is to say, for a ban message to be displayed, you need to be on - Croakie was likely not on at the time of their ban, and had to be put through a jank workaround to make the ban happen, like putting it through Console. Croakie was banned as recently as every other recent ban name, as part of the same wave, and as part of the same investigations. It's not as deep or long running as you say it is in terms of how long they've been waiting - that is very much not correct.

It hasn't been very long at all. They have not been waiting forever for a reply to a permanent ban, and it does not make a reason as to why they haven't been on the game as long as they have. That much is mostly down to them. Naturally, it also goes on record that the GMs would not share details with other players than Croakie, because that then risks the inverse - people harassing THEM. It's between them and the GMs, not us as players.

This also means, by extension, that those three months were not all spent off game, and reflecting. There is not some three month gap between the last time they harassed someone and now.

[MuniCuz]

I won't reply to all of this, since I don't have much to say, but I will clarify a misconception the post above seems to have. Croakie was not permabanned three months ago, in an upgrade from an existing ban back then. Many have seen those ban waves, and the ban system for SL2 is not very robust. Which is to say, for a ban message to be displayed, you need to be on - Croakie was likely not on at the time of their ban, and had to be put through a jank workaround to make the ban happen, like putting it through Console. Croakie was banned as recently as every other recent ban name, as part of the same wave, and as part of the same investigations. It's not as deep or long running as you say it is in terms of how long they've been waiting - that is very much not correct.

It hasn't been very long at all. They have not been waiting forever for a reply to a permanent ban, and it does not make a reason as to why they haven't been on the game as long as they have. That much is mostly down to them. Naturally, it also goes on record that the GMs would not share details with other players than Croakie, because that then risks the inverse - people harassing THEM. It's between them and the GMs, not us as players.

I didn't say they were permabanned three months ago, I said that it was three months ago they got the week ban, which is my bad if I accidentally worded that wrong. Similarly with the investigations part as mentioned, that much I didn't know about either, so a lot of thanks for correcting that.

What I do wish was known was that these details were actually shared to the player in question, because like I said, I'm ballin with not being informed as long as Croakie was, but she never was and they were never contacted afterwards about why. Especially when the response felt so off-puttingly antagonising to someone who just wanted to know about why/how this decision was made. Sorry for the misconception, I didn't know about it and that happens. The rest of my post remains somewhat the same though. But again, thanks for clearing partial of the issue up.

   

[WaifuApple]

I would also hazard a guess that based on Croakie's last paragraph singling out others for 'the same exact targeting behaviour' there has to be some degree of understanding here of wrongdoing that is being shirked. To point the finger and say "well, why aren't you doing anything about these people?" implies a belief that they are aware of their own behaviour enough to to compare it to someone else's.

Also of note is the comment of "the charges do not value the accused's side of the story". This sounds like they know the charges, but that they have something to present regarding them? All in all, this definitely reads as someone who knows more about their own behaviour and the things done than they're willing to outright state.

It's an incredibly dangerous precedent to set when you come on the forums trying to call out another group in response to your own ban. We saw that the last time with people pointing fingers at the hearth. If there are others to report, report them! The forums isn't for that kind of dirty laundry, anyhow.

[FaeLenx]

and even Croakie herself acknowledged that she made some fatal errors to move past.


Croakie was never contacted and nothing had changed. This is not okay, and if they are supposed to have any justification behind their decision, they should at the very least inform in some sort of way why. 

This had a lot of contradicting points and a lot of words, but most of all this.

Why does everyone who gets banned need an itemized list when they largely seem aware of what might have gotten them banned?

If they feel like other people did bad things too and they have reasonable evidence, proof, or logs of other people doing bad things that encouraged them to feel like they could do a bad thing, they can show that without it being a defense for the bad things they did. It wouldn't be a defense anyways.