At this point I feel that it is time for me to make an official statement on the events of current, for which I will be offering some transparency while keeping some details silent as to protect the identies of those who may be discussed in my message. I would also like to state that I am "choosing" of my own accord to enter this thread and this discussion, but anyone who wishes to hear more information should PM or DM me on the forum or Discord.

The first concern I will address is the issue of bans, both on the forum and discord, along with the view of "shadow bans". Discussing bans on the public forum is not allowed, but due to the nature of this thread I feel that we have an obligation to explain what happens behind the scenes.

[List][*] [b]Odin/Buddha:[/b] (Discord Only)
Let it be said that Odin is a very passionate member of the forum. He is a man who will fight for justice, someone who will stand their ground against those who abuse power, but his latest actions in Discord led to a ban from the chat. While he did raise a concern about a certain thread the delivery of his concern actively baited another user, mocked the moderators with a passive aggressive tone, and voiced an unreasonable expectation of the staff to address a question that even he himself could have addressed. We are a community and instead of reinforcing that view he took it as an opportunity to attack several others.
[*][b]Pugbutter:[/b] (Temporary Ban)
I recently gave Pugbutter a temporary ban from the site after an incident went down in the Bitch 2.0 thread and I was requested by an outside party member to intervene. This has not been the first time the moderator team has addressed issues in this thread and so I entered, read through the comments to get a rough idea of what was going on, and posted a cease and desist message with the additional comment of I will temporarily ban any member that continues the dispute. Due to a quote and a reply that was in jest, I issued out a ban to the member known as pugbutter as I at the time happened to view the message as a possible test of my patience and wanted to make a statement that these fights are to stop. Several hours later I removed the ban and I have since apologized to pugbutter about the miscommunication and short sighted approach.
[*][b][Undisclosed Member][/b] (Weekend Ban)
A GM of a roleplay recently had to thread ban a member of a roleplay for arguing with the GM and trolling the IC with an unreasonable post. The member in question contacted me and asked the IC post to be removed and so I took up that request and abided by their wishes. As an extension I contacted the member and told them their actions were unreasonable to which I noticed they deleted my message, and then drafted up a message with the comment of [i]"If I was going to troll a thread I would not make post that concluded my character's story. Don't be a moron."[/i]
[*][b][Undisclosed Member][/b] (Permanent Ban)
This member, to put it simply, was an underage 14yo user who was participating in a series of smut roleplays. She had been known for a while but due to the circumstantial evidence we never had enough information to follow through with that ban without it being viewed as unjust. It was only after new evidence came forth that we could action this ban and issue a message to ensure that they do not return to the forum. We also informed the member that should we catch them back on the forum under a different alias that we will be forwarding the IP addresses and listed emails to the City of Phoenix police department—the site domain is registered in Arizona—with the belief that they intent to break US Law by engaging in the act of promoting child sex crimes.
[*][b]J8cob[/b] (Permanent Ban)
J8cob's ban was a result in contributing with Grim's actions and a choice he made to actively mock me in his signature image. At the time I was engaged in a private discussion with him that seemed to going at a reasonable but slowly positive pace, however he made the decision to troll and place a quote by me in his own signature midway through that conversation. I decided passed the information onto Mahz and he dealt with it as he saw fit. Shortly after he created an appeal account to address Mahz but due to the limited time frame we were not given enough of an opportunity to reflect on his actions and evaluate his appeal. My recommendations for J8cob is now that most of the initial problem has settled he should make a fresh appeal that isn't clouded by the events of 2 months ago.*
[*][b]Grimhildr / Wade Wilson / Gullinkambi / memes / RPG News[/b] (Permanent Ban)
Every one of these accounts has been connected back to the single user, who I will be referring to as Grim. Grim's ban has been listed in the Evidence Chest but they will not be allowed back onto the forum. Ranging from Ban evasion, to trolling/flaming members, to using an official account to slander multiple members on the forum with an image; this member has proven time and time again that they have no intention of being a part of the community. This decision is now a non-negotiable.
[/list]
[Sub]*On the question of why we do not allow other members to create an appeal for a ban member, the last two cases show the various extremes of someone who has obeyed the rules of their ban, and someone who intends to continue with their immaturity. We need to evaluate the user on an individual level.
(Nyt: Your Discord ban is currently being reviewed)[/sub]

The next point I would like to address is Cyndyr's decision for quoting my [i]Private[/i] discussion with her. You by no means were obligated to display the additional portion of that discussion that I held with you, but you chose to do so. The reason why I directed you to Ruby was because I had no part in that discussion and if you would like to remedy any views on your persona then it would probably be a wiser decision to talk to the Staff Member in question rather than someone who was at the time heading second hand news.

As pointed out you and Ruby had some sort of dispute that branches back to before the creation of RPG Official and you should be the one to take responsibility for those actions. The mention of accountability has been bought up in this thread, but by creating this thread you have also involved multiple members of the community who have nothing to do with the events being discussed. Do you take ownership for that in the same way that I have taken ownership for the bans, and mistakes, that I have made within my short time as a moderator?

Your actions here, combined with Grim's actions, and even the actions of the staff, have affected many members in a negitive way. Friendships have been lost, trust shattered throughout the community, and the screenshots of who is the worse person needs to stop if we have any desire to move forward. Continuing to fight, rather than discuss; aggravated rants, rather than reports; and even quick reactions rather than a step back and reflection, have all stopped people from roleplaying and forced them into a battle of site politics. In future, raise your concerns through the correct channels so we can deal with them more efficiently.

[hr]
Finally, to discuss the actions in controlling Negro Academy...

The reason why this thread stood up for so long was simply due to the availability of the moderators at the time. We cannot be expected to live on this forum when many of us have working lives and offline priorities. Even branching back seven years ago when I was an admin of a graphics forum I was only able to access the site from home due to the lack of mobile internet. Now days my phone pings every time I get a message from a member about a site issue, but my work permissions don't allow me suitable time to sit down and evaluate every issue within an hour of it occurring. (Bare in mind that my hours are incident so I can be working any time between the hours of 5am and 10pm Australian time)

When Negro Academy was addressed the decision was made to contact the member and see what addition information we could gather. Typically speaking a member does not randomly join a site to post these types of threads unless they are a Bot, to which we believed they weren't. If that member is found to be another member of the forum then we will address the original member as well, or would you have us not make that effort and simply "shadow ban"?

Might I also add that there was no report by a member from my knowledge, and if these threads appear in the future it would be advisable to post in the [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/forums/9-suggestions-problems]Suggestions/Problems[/url] section rather than a vocal, annoyed opinion on the discord.

To conclude I will not be discussing this post any more and if someone wishes to see additional evidence on the bans, to discuss the accountability of the staff, or to question the meaning of my message, they are to [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/convos/new?to=NuttsnBolts]PM me directly[/url]. Keep in mind that you will be talking to a site moderator and if I deem the topic not to a satisfactory, mature level I will declare the topic annul.