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Not Disc, but I volunteered to send the denial e-mail since I was the primary point of contact for the appeal in #site17.

Dr Jesal Dave/etc:

Your appeal has been denied.

In the time leading up to your most recent appeal, you created a sockpuppet account to evade your permaban, got caught, joined the official chat, and lied about being a new user who didn't know why they were unable to join. Only after you were caught a second time did you attempt to appeal your ban.

Your recent actions are a continuation of the behavior that resulted in your ban, and as such are a strong indicator that you are unwilling to follow the rules of the site.

You may appeal again in one year. Note that if you continue to attempt to evade your ban, future appeals won't be accepted and you may lose appeal privileges altogether.

Regards,

Kufat
SCP Foundation Wiki operational staff member
SkipIRC admin

Ban mirrored on SkipIRC as well.

First things first, the wording in this staff post is quite poorly done, as it has given many in the O4 thread the idea that Gee's "actionable" behavior has continued for over two years, when in reality it has been two cases in that timespan. This alone is bad, but even worse is that many of its claims are straight up wrong.

As the only other mod in the same timezone (roughly) as gee, i can assure that the idea that he is unavailable to accept his duties has no basis in reality. I have called upon him (pinged) many times, whenever i had a doubt, or wanted a second opinion, and he always replied fairly quickly, far quicker than many other members of the team we consider active when pinged under similar circunstances. Most problems you can chalk Gee having on the discord team are those inherent to the current estructure of the team, issues which are being actively solved the last few months.

Of the claims of innadecuate behavior we run with the issue that no examples have been provided of any kind. I'm not gonna pretend that gee is perfect and can do no wrong, but doing those claims without providing even a single example of that behavior results in an inability to fully analize the extent of any wrongdoing and makes impossible to take any appropiate measure (if any). Personally i haven't seen any behavior from gee that could be considered too much, even at his most acerbic and rude.

Of the topic regarding Marceline_Reynes i wont speak of as I was directly involved in it.

No punishment.

Noting my recusal from this matter. I was not active in the creation of this thread due to irl obligations and generally not feeling like this was a situation I have the ability to handle.

Declined D5120D5120 for name and application that did not meet criteria:

I wish to see what there is that the eye hasn't

Declined again:

I am trying to not be a D-Class but that is not the point right now, I wish only to help with anything there is to understand and work with fellow SCP enjoyers such as myself within this community

Re: Username Log by ZynZyn, 20 Sep 2023 07:15

I will just chime in real quick on mention of me: in my case, I'm not as active as I used to be since I intended to step down as a Server Admin to a Moderator. Each time some factor has prevented me from doing so, most recently being that there's a Discord restructuring proposal on the horizon that would fit me into a better position than I am currently in. I definitely acknowledge I'm not super active in the day to day, and also want to explicitly state that, as far as moderation is concerned, Gee is much more on top of it than I am.

Agree firmly with the denial. We’re reaching the point where I feel like perma should mean perma as the user seems to do all they can to evade consequences for their actions and continue to break rules.

Thanks for clarifying, Ari — I don't think there's really any argument for removing/demoting Yossi ad hoc given their activity is present but in a less recognizable form. I just think procedurally it seems premature to have activity levels assessed in a whole staff disc manner now when the measure and assessment of what adequate activity even means for the discord team in its totality is in flux.

Topic YES NO
Implement policy 31 0
Unmaintained canons section 22 9
One-time conversion to series 30 1

All three items pass.

I would like to make one quick clarification about the Discord admin activity: Yossi handles the bots and in a very timely manner. Without him I do not believe we could function at all. I know that there have been vacations and health issues and other things that have caused moderation gaps with the other admins, but I do not want to make it seem like Yossi has been in any way inactive because without him I think we might have already collapsed under the weight of so many people with so much low effort trolling.

Discord is a pita to moderate some times and I don’t hold it against anyone for needing time away. I just know that Pris has struggled in particular with Gee’s communication during critical admin needs and that it was specifically brought up in the complaint so I spoke to it. Full transparency, I’ve been holding the restructure proposal until after this is resolved specifically because I didn’t think it was appropriate to mix these particular peas with those particular carrots.

Overly sarcastic and/or passive aggressive behavior
Borderline hostile and aggressive statements
Borderline offensive jokes
Purposefully inflammatory actions

I am strongly opposed to censuring a staff member for these actions as listed without evidence, especially when two of them include the word "borderline". "Overly sarcastic and/or passive aggressive behavior", "Borderline hostile and aggressive statements" — I could apply this to HarryBlank. I could apply this to JackalRelated. I could apply this to ROUNDERHOUSE. It could be applied to me. If this is the level of hostility necessary to start a censure discussion then there is a trivially easy way to utterly gridlock staff — though I'm going to guess this point is largely a rider to the more serious concerns.

I should think my own interest in this not being the case going forward is obvious.

It has also come to disciplinary's attention that gee has failed to uphold his responsibilities as captain of the Discord Team.

I'll defer to Ari's description of the situation here since she knows far better. Active as a Moderator, not active as an Admin. I can even agree with the outcome — removal from Admin/Captaincy for the time being. However, she also states that the lack of involvement at the Admin level has more or less made Pris the only Admin active in attempting to work through promotions, recruitment, or work through more difficult issues and that the larger issues have ultimately been falling on the shoulders of a single Admin.

I can agree with a demotion from admin/captain, but not as a disciplinary action. This sort of inactivity demotion should be strictly a non-disciplinary team-internal enforcement mechanism instead of something farmed out to all of staff. If being inactive as an admin is enough justification for removal, and Pris is the only Admin active, then we also need to open disc/censure threads for Katie and Yossi because they need to be removed from captainship as well based on the information presented here.

Just to be clear, I'm not actually advocating for the censure of every Discord admin except Prism, but highlighting that I believe treating a lack of activity as a disciplinary measure is unwise. I'd much prefer that the matter of activity be handled as an internal discord team process and that Gee, if deserving of demotion/captaincy removal, undergoes it as part of the moderator/admin activity audit that I believe is part of the upcoming Discord team overhaul, instead of as an explicitly disciplinary action.

Overall, I don't think the above two reasons hold water, and I'm a little surprised they were raised at all, even as riders, because they weaken the case for censure.

Others have raised their concerns about the procedural issues of AHT requesting a Disc action for offsite matters — for what it's worth, I think there's a difference between "AHT recommends that this individual be punished" as opposed to "AHT suggests that staff as a whole considers whether this individual has done enough wrong that staff as a whole wants to disavow them". There's a difference between "this group with limited transparency has decided that you should be removed from the site" vs "your peers should discuss if they collectively no longer believe you should be a peer."

One thing that feels weird to me is that AHT issued a warning instead of transferring to Staffwide/Disc immediately. Feels like being tried twice for the same crime. I know, I know, this isn't America and Gee isn't American but still. It felt like the punishment was settled, and then it was reopened. "This is not an AHT matter, so it should be a Disc matter" just feels like it makes more sense than "This is an AHT matter and we have handled it, but it is also a Disc matter and we have not handled it."

I also think that context matters here. Gee's statements were made during a series of tragic miscommunications between staff/the userbase and the AHT team, which AHT has blessedly taken announcements to rectify. After the statements were made, the unjustly accused user was AHT banned for:

Egregious offsite incident of a sexual nature.
Unwelcome sexual attention, including sending users sexual images, pressuring sexual discussion or interaction, or repeated unwanted flirting.
Repeated inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.

I get the procedural steps were completely thrown out the window, but the optics just seem… weird? Yes, vigilantism is problematic — but to the degree of an AHT warning, not an AHT ban — by AHT's current ruling. Though I have to admit I'm biased since my own Disc thread/warning was for asking in staffchat why Bright hadn't been AHT banned yet before they were. To me what we are actually debating is "what punishment should someone who accused/offhandedly called someone who was later AHT banned for an egregious offsite sexual incident a pedophile receive". I think the crux of the issue here is really the use of the word "pedophile" as opposed to something more generic like "predator". Because like Riemann says, yes, it's tasteless, but if that were the only issue it'd be folded into the "decorum" point and it'd be one example to support 4 points of increasing severity. The AHT log fundamentally is the site saying, in more formal terms and tacitly, "this user did something very bad". I know I shouldn't argue a counterfactual. We live in the world where Gee said "you are an actual pedophile" instead of saying "you are a creep" or "you deserve to be AHT banned", which would be significantly weaker, less inflammatory fighting words.

I'm sorry; I just can't really argue from reason alone anymore. It feels weird that this censure proposal says, outright, "We acknowledge the fact that the two users knew each other when the other user was a minor; however, upon investigation, there is no evidence of any romantic/sexual relationship while the partner was a minor." It needs to be said for transparency reasons but I think it's so, so uncomfortable that it needs to be said. The whole situation is weird and awkward and personally I hate that we still have to litigate it even through proxy. Which is part of the reason why I'm fine with the status quo of the AHT warn. Because the people who signed up to deal with sensitive situations already settled on a punishment for multiple parties involved. I just joined staff because I wanted to make better charts and then I got into far too many unnecessary fights. Am I even allowed to say this? Like am I allowed to express that I find the situation weird and awkward? It's just my opinion and I'm really trying to avoid saying anything that hasn't already been stated by the AHT logs but holy shit a situation like that is above my pay grade.

Staff can't dig, staff can't investigate, staff as a body don't have any sort of subpoena power over private communications (nor should it, frankly). AHT only has what people volunteer. Again, I really shouldn't argue for counterfactuals but like in this situation lots of people failed on many levels (proper reporting at least) and it feels weird to punish the guy who, from the outside, looks like he picked a fight extremely overzealously but precipitated the events that led to the actual ban. Again I can't say for sure that's what happened but from the outside it looks like that. If the evidence of misconduct existed then people weren't submitting it until Gee did the equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater that was filled with vape smoke. And I for one don't want to be party to the perception of punishing a guy for calling out misconduct of a sexual nature of a user that AHT later punished for an egregious offsite incident of a sexual nature. Call me a coward for acting on perception instead of fact — that's why I'm not on disc or AHT nor do I intend to be.

Disregarding the activity and abrasiveness charges, which I think are on shaky grounds, it feels like this censure proposal is asking staff to morally balance whether it's ok to call someone a pedophile in a one-line remark when they're actually just "doing things that will get them AHT banned shortly". (I mean that's a successful Elon Musk defense for calling someone a "pedo guy" when actually intending to call them creepy. lol.) I don't want to have to make that decision. I don't think anyone really does which is why everyone is dancing around it and invoking aht/disc procedural issues and the holes in the other two reasons to sink this censure without needing to discuss the uncomfortable part. I get that being on AHT is hard but frankly I really feel like I'd be satisfied just accepting the extant AHT punishment of a warning for one extremely rude tweet. And I mean like, back during age "unraising" there were equally unsubstantiated allegations of implied pedophilia being thrown around for being okay with minors on the site as opposed to dating someone you knew as a minor. Those allegations were much more oblique and polite but if those are ok and this isn't then IMO that would make this would be a punishment for decorum (not substance) which I disagree with as I state way at the beginning. And crucially in that whole discussion there was no AHT ban in play. This censure is directly adjacent to an AHT situation that had actual recorded consequences. Being asked to consider a punishment in the context of AHT having found some reports credible just — why do we have to do this moral calculus.

Honestly, I've had a few seconds to cool down, and I realize my reaction might seem extreme. But I didn't sign up to litigate the exact circumstances under which I'd punish someone for calling a future-AHT-banned-user a pedophile without evidence for the pedophilia, which is, in my view, the most actionable point of this censure proposal. I realize my reaction is disproportionate and clearly biased towards "Gee acted rashly and rudely but not definitively wrongly". In part, that's because I have the hindsight of the AHT ban. The instant AHT decided that a ban was valid Gee became someone saying an inflammatory and false statement to someone who said an inflammatory statement that might've had a valid sentiment behind it, or a valid sentiment in roughly the same extremely uncomfortable territory (given, of course, the necessary secrecy of the AHT blackbox).

oh yeah as a disclosure i consider gee an internet friend which i believe i also stated when arguing against him as sole discord captain for the inevitable discord rework.

so yeah i guess in summary — inactivity and abrasiveness feel like nothingburgers, and the other thing is why we have AHT in the first place, which has already ruled on the matter, and it's extremely uncomfortable and I don't want to discuss it any more than we have to.

Anyways, the 04 mirror has been largely useless in the 4 posts at time of my writing. The first is too willing to pass judgement without evidence, investigation, and inquiry, underscoring that maybe the general userbase isn't aware enough regarding general staff actions to have informed enough opinions to contribute to disciplinary decisions; the second is underinformed and poorly worded pertaining to the nature of staff and disc issues, given that at some point in the past we allegedly started recording all complaints about staffers in nondisc/disc threads — two incidents over two years apart is not equivalent to "two years worth of disciplinary inquiries about you", which I should note is actually a better description of Rounderhouse's non-disc record; the third is largely echoing points made on this thread including the one that we don't need an 04 mirror; the fourth is by a now-deleted likely-sockpuppet account accusing this whole thing of being a hit job on Gee. If the thread heats up further (and it's already pretty spicy) I would ask that we consider locking it, but hopefully it'll stay at the current relatively sedate state. But let's not do it again.

no action. either that or demote all discord admins except Prismal, which won't happen.

Seconding Rounder on everything.

I'm recusing myself from a majority of the points on the Marceline_Reynes issue as I was an active member of that situation and I received my talking-to from AHT.

I find the claims that Gee has been inactive to be patently absurd. He has been a great help to me over the last months of being a Junior Mod in 19cord, and as seen above, he has been a great help and an active presence to others as well. I think this issue popping up here as a point against Gee comes from how isolated the Discord Moderation team is in comparison to other staff teams. We rarely deal with onsite issues, we govern our own disciplinary process, and we have our own rules. This is a benefit and a detriment, as having these sweeping permissions allows us to get our jobs done smoothly while a lot of the work isn't as forward-facing as a discussion in staff chat or a thread on 05. If any staff member believes Gee to genuinely be inactive I implore them to keep up to date with the moderation channels. Gee's removal would significantly hinder the moderation team.

Overly sarcastic and/or passive aggressive behavior
Borderline hostile and aggressive statements
Borderline offensive jokes
Purposefully inflammatory actions

You need examples here. I don't think there's a single active member of staff currently who's not guilty of at least one of these offenses. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Gee is innocent and this is an overblown point. As we've all seen, he has his moments. That being said, the first two offenses are misapplied at best, so this is the biggest issue we're left with. I don't think someone being sarcastic or making borderline offensive jokes is where the line is for a member of staff.

No punishment.

I haven't been present for staff matters for a few months now, so I don't feel I'm familiar enough with current events to make a judgement regarding the AHT case or the Discord team. But I do want to highlight this part from Rounder's post:

I might feel differently if this thread was written better, but this seems like a confused mess that is not actually sure what it wants to Discipline gee over, lacking both evidence and meaningful commentary other than 'bad vibes'.

The argument for disciplining gee as its written right now is incredibly unconvincing. I think gee can be too abrasive at times, but that alone doesn't warrant censure. The case presented here simply doesn't justify 3 month censure and removal from any authoritative positions on staff, and it doesn't come anywhere close to justifying removal from staff altogether.

Seconding both Rounder and Fishish here. Gee is an active member of the Discord team, removing him from staff would be unnessecary and not benefit anyone. Also agree with Aster's comment about 04 threads for Disc cases.

Speaking to the first point, I have to agree that if AHT has not decided that the twitter incident is not actionable, we do not have the mandate to deal with it as Disciplinary. While I think pouring gasoline on that particular fire was ill advised, policing the behavior of staff outside of staff spaces is not something we're equipped to navigate, a good use of our time, nor something I think we should be participating in the first place with. I do not believe removal for this action is warranted.

However, speaking to the Discord role I believe that a distinction needs to be made between Moderator and Admin, which is Gee's current role. As it stands, while he has been active in moderation incidents (particularly more so in the past few weeks), and often as an effective voice, the lack of involvement at the Admin level has more or less made Pris the only Admin active in attempting to work through promotions, recruitment, or work through more difficult issues. I will say that there have been times where his direction was very useful in dealing with a problem, in part because he often takes a more lenient approach to preemptive solutions (thus helping us avoid a lot of gun-jumping), I'm not sure that he's an effective Admin as the larger issues have ultimately been falling on the shoulders of a single Admin due to his lack of communication with them (and admittedly the absence of others as well, outside of this discussion).

I will say that there are situations where any of us fail to appropriately read the room and perhaps inflame things more than they should be, and I can think of several incidents with Gee that would fall in this category, but I also could say the same for virtually all moderators because we're people and make mistakes. The issue that I see as the greatest problem currently is that he is active as a moderator, not as an admin, although I recognize that others are seemingly having more effective communication with him than others and perhaps that is coloring my own view of the situation. While there are times that he has been rude to users in Discord (although rarely the other moderators that I can ever remember), I do not believe it to be more onerous than other incidents with other people, because we're all humans and sometimes mess up. The biggest issue for me right now is that the work he is currently doing is not that of an Admin, but rather a moderator.

My recommendation is not a removal from staff, but removal from Admin/Captaincy for the time being. I have no strong opinion on censure in either direction.

I can't really speak to gee's presence in Discord, so, uh, I won't.

But as to the first thing, the report from AHT - while I can appreciate that maybe there's some grey areas between where AHT and Disc operate, I don't think this is it. Gee made a tasteless tweet (which it took a read or two to parse that this was a tweet, "public platform" is a bit vague here) that AHT cleared as not harassment. So I guess I don't really understand why it's here? It's not really admissible from Disc's point of view and it's kosher (kosher enough) from AHT's. Gee didn't even bring the tweet to 19cord, and while maybe he probably should have recused himself from the discussion, "I didn't recuse myself from a discussion or stop it" seems more like internal discord team policy than a need for censorship.

As to gee's behaviour, his past censorship was two years ago. If we want to discuss his current behaviour, and whether that's worthy of a censor, we should discuss his current behaviour, particularly with examples. It seems a little odd to me that no examples of this are given - I would prefer for us outside of the disciplinary team to see the examples that were impetus to this censorship discussion, as censorship is an all-staff endeavour.

Agreeing with Rounder, Fishish, and Jackal.

Edit: I also wanted to comment that, while O4 threads are great for transparency when it comes to policies, going forward I don't think disc threads should follow suit. It's bringing in the opinions of people that are not involved as staff members to comment on something where their vote won't be counted anyways.

Edit Edit: I feel like I should probably go a bit deeper in my opinion here. I don't think there should be action squarely on how this case is being presented, but I would rather defer any action to the discord team to handle internally. I think the tweet and all 19cord discussion, as well as discussion about this topic in a very private manner, were incredibly inappropriate to happen the way they did. This is a private manner that 1. probably should have never been brought up in public in the first place and 2. something that should have been stopped well before it happened when it was brought up initially in staffcord.

However, I am strongly against the precedent that this sets for Disc being able to police user activity outside of wiki spaces (something I assumed to be in AHT's purview regardless), and I feel like the lack of examples doesn't do much to further the point. Could there have been genuine grounds for action here? Sure. The way this thread was conducted leads me to vote No Action.

I don't know enough about how the Discord team operates to comment on it and I haven't been on 19cord enough to judge anyone's activity. I agree with the other things stated here, specifically that Disc doesn't have anything to do with offsite matters, AHT does, and if they've decided it's not harassment then I think it's fair to just leave it be. Also, I don't see any reasons to bring up his past censure.

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