While most off-site behavior should be dealt with by staff, when it's something this high-profile, I feel that any action or inaction we take is going to be making a statement. Yes, the victims are off-site. Yes, it's largely symbolic (Landis is probably not mouthing at the bit to make another SCP). But what we do here is going to let people know where we stand. And I stand by the victims.

• First, while I believe there is at least some truth to the allegations, these are still just allegations (however credible they may seem). The policy question, then, is at what level of evidence or credibility of allegations should Disciplinary/Harassment act? Not saying banning the user was the wrong course of action ultimately, but I can't help thinking action was premature here.
• Another policy question: why would this user be banned for (alleged) reprehensible off-site behavior (against people who I assume are not members of the site), while other users who have been accused of reprehensible behavior (including against site members) are not banned? I realize there are quite a few differences between this case and previous Disciplinary/Harassment cases (not least of which is the fact that Max Landis is famous, but also there was concern about reprisals against the victim in at least one Harassment case that I'm aware of), but the reasoning behind the different outcomes needs to be reconciled.
• The site has never deleted works simply because the author (allegedly) committed unrelated reprehensible behavior, and I am strongly against starting that now.
• This is yet another example of why Harassment issues need to be dealt with deliberately, by the Harassment team, not rushed by well-meaning peeps who really shouldn't be directly involved (speaking from experience here).

1. We are going to permanently ban the user in question from the SCP Foundation and also our IRC channel.

2. We are not going to touch the user's work.

I believe two admins here have already agreed the user should be permanently banned. I will also throw in my hat for this, and will post on the antiharassment bannings thread appropriately.

We may continue to discuss number 2 as a policy issue. Issues with how this may be brought up should be discussed with Cimmerian, unless the issue is actionable, then it should go in its own thread.

Thank you all for your opinions at this time and please continue discussing point number 2 or alternative courses that have not been brought up yet relating to this issue.

Don't just throw a thread up, mess up the pots and pans, and go 'well it's done now, do something about it'. Disc and Harassment have known since the day the first tweet dropped. We have had a half dozen users a day message us about it. I don't expect you to have known that but a lot of other staff knew and could have told you.

Or you know, bring it up with someone on a team who is relevant, like disc or harassment, since you're not on those teams to my knowledge (which is probably why you didn't know that we were preparing ourselves properly). Yeah you're a mod but disc and harassment didn't need help.

Now let me be short and sweet. The SCP stays since it wasn't used in harassment. His account will probably be banned.

In terms of whether or not behavior off the wiki, yes, I do think it should, but it has to be whether or not the individual in question is at risk of spreading toxic behavior to our community. If we have someone who has a significant history of sexual harassment off site, staff should have the right to prevent potential harassment against out users. The same if we have an offsite neo-nazi who makes their connections to their behavior very explicit and out there for everyone to see.¹ Staff have the right to ban that user for potentially spreading toxic behavior.

I think he should be permanent banned.

Cimm, as someone who's had a sometimes spotty past in doing stuff without consulting others or following proper procedure, this really should have gone through the harassment team or administration, the latter will probably have to discuss this further with you at some point in the not too distant future.

Your past works are not subject to deletion just because you're a terrible human being, but we don't need to let you in the club so to speak.

Hell. If it came to light that I was raising Zebra to fight each other with machetes tied to their foreheads, and I call them "unicorn fights", I'd expect you to revoke my membership.

Note, I do not do this, but I do admit it sounds metal A.F.

We need to decide (and publicly, I think, so there's a record) if behavior like this outside of the wiki is actionable on the wiki itself, and if so to what level.

We are discussing a policy issue. The specific circumstances are without precedent. And very public already.

This looks like enough information to act as a confirmation of this behavior offsite. Some of you may know from discussion in Staff Chat that I've long held that offsite behavior should generally not be actionable except in severe cases. This is behavior that I consider severe enough that action should at least be considered.

Which action should be taken I am still mulling over. A site/chat ban would be reasonable to me. A removal of his works from the wiki would be the kind of step I would consider but definitely needs more discussion before we did it. I don't know that we've ever done that before for behavior.

Edit: Added to the above: I am not fully comfortable with the idea of removing someone's works from the wiki (it's merely mentioned because it was brought up in chat discussions when this initially came up). I'd have to see a fairly convincing argument to change my mind on that. However we need to be very sure we do not promote that work officially offsite if the decision is made to ban.

A site/chat ban would be reasonable to me.

He doesn't even use chat. Not as far as I've remembered. A site ban is of course what I agree with, but this would have been something the captain of the Harassment Team could have at least considered before an 05 thread was posted. Now everything has to be done over the forums and the process gets a lot messier. Yeah, we have a thread up faster, but it's messier.

He last used chat three years ago, according to jarvis. uptomyknees is the username.

A removal of his works from the wiki would be the kind of step I would consider but definitely needs more discussion before we did it.

No. We've removed people before for harassment issues without taking down their works. That's just been precedent Harassment Team had settled on. The only reason why to remove his SCP is because the SCP was involved in harassing someone. Then that discussion can happen. This shouldn't even be a question. (Even if I want him and his trace removed from this site.) Furthermore, since this was all behavior off-site, the SCP doesn't even come into play (AFAIK).

If staff wants to make it policy to remove all the written work on this site of people banned for harassment, that has to be its own separate thread, separate from this discussion, because that's a whole other and complex issue. It's not as simple as just ruling this here. Harassment Team would have to go back through previous number of authors banned for harassment, and I'd also just outright feel uncomfortable doing that without asking anyone affected by said harassers if they're fine with it retroactively, and that's not a discussion I think people want to have. So no.

I don't know that we've ever done that before for behavior.

No, we haven't.

Anyway, Max Landis should be permabanned from this site. That's what I think of this.

This thread begins the conversation with the available information and ensures this doesn't get missed. Whatever actions end up taken will be decided on by relevant staff, but the rest of us and the community ought to discuss it (and not just in staff chat) at least. As moderator, I feel it's well within my purview to begin a conversation on a topic like this outside of specifically being told not to by an admin.

Even if I'm wrong there, it's up. If admins want to talk to me about pushing this issue they can.

Today I went ahead and did a bit of digging. This is still sort of in the back pages of entertainment news right now but there's a number of confirming or related tweets to read.

https://twitter.com/UnburntWitch/status/944367597339865090

https://twitter.com/vornietom/status/943013593661849600

https://twitter.com/MollyMcIsaac/status/944676235950440448

https://twitter.com/AaronFlux/status/944684533827346432

https://twitter.com/_anthonyburch/status/944296367459065857

https://twitter.com/aubreysitterson/status/944384563534487553

Also of import is this tweet from Anna Akana from back in October which any reasonable person would conclude is related to the tweet from the 22nd (for anyone who is unfamiliar with the principals here: Max Landis is the son of famous Hollywood director John Landis).

That's the information I have in front of me now. Just to be clear, Max Landis is a member of our wiki. We need to decide (and publicly, I think, so there's a record) if behavior like this outside of the wiki is actionable on the wiki itself, and if so to what level. That's this discussion.

Discipline and Harassment teams should weigh in here. Since I'm starting this off: Jr. Staff should feel free to participate and non-staff users who wish to have their voices heard should privately message me or another member of staff with their point of view so it can be posted.

I'm aware we're still in the middle of the holidays, but with the glacial pace at which we make such decisions, I felt it was best to start this as soon as we had enough information to start it.