jmo1121109 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 7:55 pm
This is unacceptable. Those evil mods have a problem with our group and all we've been doing is making racist usernames, mocking gay people, calling each other the n word, breaking public press and gunboat press rules, and letting each other access our accounts. I don't see how any of this could possibly be related to us breaking half the site rules, it's clearly a problem of a moderator having a personal vendetta against us. DOWN WITH THE MODS. I DEMAND JUST DICE.
Ok JMO, I'm gonna be serious with you now, since it's now obvious that you'll actually respond.
This is unacceptable. Not because I think you or the moderators of WebDiplomacy are evil, but because you have banned a person who actually cares about this game.
I'm not talking about my friend group, because I will give you that some of them are certainly out of line. If they had been banned instead of my friend, it would have been understandable and acceptable. They have been immature and they have used offensive language (though I feel obligated to mention, this was only in private games. Nobody outside the game was intended to see and get offended by the language used).
But I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about Alex, who was banned without any proper reason, who played the game to have fun and bond with people. Out of everyone, he was the most civil while playing the game, especially when it was with other people. He liked the game and this website community so much, he planned on making a club just for it. However, not only can he not play the game anymore, it seems that you, as a moderator, are refusing to take into consideration that maybe you were in the wrong. Maybe a person who cares this much about a game, enough to go through this much trouble and deal with this much slack from you, doesn't deserve to be restricted from ever playing again.
Though, I feel like I should also address the accusations you have thrown at Alex.
The “Gun-Boat and Press Violations” that I believe Alex is being accused of occured in one of our private games. Broken Bones, an anonymous, private, global chat game which was between Alex, me, and our friend group. The point of the anonymous option in the game was so nobody would be able to tell who anyone else was and we could play it like a ‘normal diplomacy game’. However, one of our friends went out of his way to find out who everyone was, somewhat ruining the point of public chat and the anonymous feature. Some of our friends in this game just decided to speak face to face, while Alex and some other people decided to just use the private messaging feature.
As I mentioned before, Alex was not a part of my friend group who participated in particularly offensive language. I might also mention, the language that he did use was never intended to mock a group. For example, “mocking gay people” never occurred. The term “gay”, which had been used by some of my friends, was never intended to refer to an actual group of people or meant to be used in a homophobic way. This slang develops among friend groups you may be a part of, not as a way to be offensive, but as a way to have fun with each other. Sure, you may consider the language to be immature, but regardless, it did not harm anyone as that “offensive” language was sent in private games among friends.
The “Access to other accounts” violation occurred only in private games and really is an exaggeration. We were introducing other players to the website and, in order to get them to understand the game and its mechanics, helped them make their moves in private games that we were a part of. Afterwards, multiple people from our friend group were so surprised that it was Alex, of all people, got banned, many of them were more than willing to speak out on his behalf in forum posts.
But, to be fair, none of this really matters, as it is obvious to us that you have already made your decision. And as a moderator, there’s not really any point in changing your mind when there’s no consequence for you.
This is why our friend group has decided that it would probably be the best idea to just leave this site and the moderators who own it. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to participate with this community, many of whom are actually quite nice and very helpful (See Alex’s WebDiplomacy Club post). We would like to thank those amazing people for their legitimate and helpful suggestions and as we move forth from this site, we will likely use many of them to start our Diplomacy Club.
Adios, jkump1