I know I've only been here a week, but lemme give all you peeps some advice. Be yourself and if you get banned, then fuck it - there's plenty other sites to go to. If you're involved in a creative environment, but are afraid to say things or talk about things for fear of being banned then staying isn't worth it.
No matter how much work you put into this place, or time you devote to it, unless you own the site then being a member here is a "blessing not a right". There are no laws stating that they have to do anything when it comes to whom they ban.
Personally I haven't had any problems here yet, being new, but already this place looks a little shady based on the mod's responses.
A lot of websites have a Ban List, with the name of the user and a pic/link to the post that got them banned. Nothing else said about it. It's a locked thread so no one can reply to it. This is a great idea because it will stop the questioning of your judgments AND make sure the mod's can't abuse their power because they have to show the proof of their actions.
And people should be able to make appeals for others, especially if they have evidence. There's really no legitimate reason to not allow that, except for the fact that you don't want to.
That line of logic—"If you don't like it, go play another game"—has ruined far more communities already. If the owners/staff/moderators (of
any site, not just this one) are immune to criticism then they have no real incentive to change anything. If they can dodge their responsibilities by telling themselves, "There are other RP sites for these whiners to move to," they'll never find a reason to make their own site better. After all, you cannot reconcile a simple difference in tastes between two roleplayers.
Frankly, this thread symbolizes progress. The first 2-3 times this happened the mods fully committed themselves to damage control: they tone-policed, claiming that you could discuss any controversial topic you like but
only with certain pre-approved styles of rhetoric. They blatantly censored, first claiming that they deleted threads for their "insulting" or "inflammatory" nature, but then deleting the same threads a second time even when edited to fit a non-provocative tone. And this censorship, as a matter of fact, transcended the site itself and its connected applications, as some mods tried to prevent us from discussing these issues in others' Discord channels, and even in my own. They didn't want the story getting out anywhere.
If they're allowing this discussion to finally take place, they must have realized that their coverup failed. Utterly and spectacularly. People are naturally curious, and some of them even risk bans/mutes to find the answers they seek. They go to the mods seeking these answers, and when the mods refuse to provide them, those players will talk to each other instead, including people like me, the ones with big mouths and bold opinions. Hypothetically speaking, I can lie to these curious parties, or at least present the facts to them through a biased lens, whereas the mods have finally realized that letting us speak for ourselves, publicly and openly, in a forum where we're held accountable only for our own explicit words and actions, means no one will have to
wonder why someone was banned if he said something offensive in this thread. We can read it for ourselves. Further, the opinions expressed here cannot be cherrypicked, taken out of context.
At least while this thread is up, we don't have to speculate anymore as to why so-and-so was banned, nor what inflammatory things he said preceding this penal action. Here we're held accountable for our own words, presented in their purest form, directly from our own mouths. To flinch from this thread, to decry its existence, is to eschew honesty itself.
I'll add, too, that although this site is seriously flawed, it's also the best I've found for quenching my thirst in writing creative fiction. For that reason alone, I'd sooner help in any way I can to repair it than simply burn bridges and migrate to another. A nigga ain't shit if he ain't loyal.
puddingpunter,
Fish of Oblivion,
Izurich,
CyclingTortoise,
Zygfryt,
dianthuspetals,
sassy1085,
deegee,
Ti,
DELETED35894
