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.
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.