Grievance Board

I'll play by the rules once the admins do. I think spreading lies about me without evidence breaks their own Rule 1.5, yes?

If you don't think they're true, maybe these screenshots will help. These are conversations that Shadic has just sent me that he had between Maple and Nashua.

Shadic and Maple
Shadic and Nashua


Have fun reading through them.

Socks, you were given the most minor form of infraction we can give, because you insinuated Ed abuses his girlfriend.
Abuse is not a joke, Socks. In any circumstance. You were given a temporary, 1 day ban from the discord because that is not okay.

As I see it, as a Chat Mod, this 1-Day ban is sticking. Because this isn't a joke and trying to tie this into the wider previous issue with Saizo will not help your case.

You can tell a joke about anything, sure. Whether or not it's funny is up to the other people in the (proverbial) room with you, they're the ones who are going to be laughing or not. If no one laughs, you probably need to tell a different joke, or find a new room with more like-minded people.

First off the Yakone/Yaktwo joke was made by another member prior to me doing it, if you had a problem with it you are also not practicing what you preach as you never once said it was offensive to you to me or the other member. In PM or the chat. I will avoid that joke in the future if it makes you uncomfortable though, but you very frequently joke about yourself as well in the chat and pointed out you don't find that sort of thing offensive as well.

Secondly;
I didn't PM you because I thought it was common sense not to make that sort of thing into a joke. I don't see what's funny about abuse. I didn't want to cause a scene in the chat either as I've actually been through an abusive relationship before and wasn't really sure what to say to that at first, and knew I could've easily lashed out because it's something personal to me. So I simply said what I did in response to try and get past it. I cannot express how uncomfortable your "joke" made me feel. It wasn't a joke to me it was a jab. I get you saw it as a joke but I didn't think it was funny as it's something I've personally been through that Ed helped me out of, so to even 'joke' about Ed doing the same to me isn't okay with me. You are not close enough to me to know if that kind of joke is okay or not, you've never once asked if it's okay and you weren't asked "hey why did you say that" because I know why you said it, you thought it was funny, that's why you said it. Why would I need to ask? This is not the first time you've made "jokes" at myself or Ed either of a similar manner, this was simply the worst.

You need to also keep in mind that it was a 'joke' aimed at both myself and Ed and both of us found no humour in it, he only saw it because I showed it to him because it made me uncomfortable. Why should I have to point out a joke like that isn't okay to begin with also? You should know it's a certain kind of humour to begin with. Try maybe making less personal jokes to people you hardly know? Plenty of other people and myself make jokes all the time in the chat even targeted jokes that land just fine.

People have every right to leave if they feel like they should, but I'm appalled you're dragging a totally different issue into this to try and make the staff look bad for telling you off about a joke that simply wasn't a joke to who you targeted. I went to Ed about this as I felt comfortable enough to tell him how I felt on the matter, he did not go out of his way to strike you because he didn't like what you said, it was because I, the person you aimed the "joke" at, went to him about it. He would've done the same if I wasn't his girlfriend as well. This is not staff striking you on a whim, I went to them for help. I already struggle with social anxiety which is why I don't talk as much as others in the chat, if they had of done nothing I would've continued to feel more uncomfortable and unsafe, how is that fair?
I'm all for jokes but you need to understand that people have different humour and I don't find humour in abuse.

And to top it all off You also PM'd me and have since apologized so why do that if you did not conclude that what you've done was wrong? Am I to believe your apology wasn't genuine then?

Y’all are right. I spoke with this with staff and I have seen what I have done clearly wasn’t a joke. At the time I saw it as such and then it was brought to my attention after speaking on it with staff and yourself. I sincerely apologize to both you and Edward. I realize I’m wrong and I can admit it as well. 

Also I only made it a post here because what I truly believed to have told you both was a joke with no malice intent. I don’t want people looking at me like an asshole who intended to insult

Players are not expected to have prior knowledge of every potential trauma that their comments could inflame. Players are also not expected to be perfect: we've all said things that came across a little too harsh, made jokes that didn't land right or turned out to be in poor taste. That's not really the sum of this particular situation. This is an instance where the subject matter having a high likelihood to cause offense should have been common sense. If it was something that would ordinarily be considered mundane or at least borderline, there likely would not have been any punishment. Again, jokes landing wrong are a daily occurrence. I've certainly offended people in the past, and I'll admit that outright.

However, the fact remains that a joke implying that one member is engaging in domestic abuse against their current partner is not acceptable. If that's the kind of thing that a couple people find funny to joke about in their particular circumstances, they can keep it to their own private groups. Whether he had specific knowledge about Dingo's past or not, he should have known better. And he's apologized, has served his one day term, and can now engage in the Discord freely without any additional warning percentage to worry about. 

The point of the new Discord strike system is not to single out Socks or to make people afraid to joke around. It's to clean up an environment that has, over the past few months, repeatedly prompted both members and staff to either quit or take extended breaks, without us needing to assess percentage warns. 

Common sense is as subjective as sense of humour. This is a poorly constructed and applied rule.

As for the purpose of this system, I think the biggest issue with the Discord is not people making jokes that don't go over well with everyone. There's an undercurrent of passive aggressive behaviour and excluding members who aren't part of whatever cliques are currently dominating the discussion, which is why I no longer participate in it.

I can read the writing on the wall, however, and I recognise I might be in a minority on this. As such, I encourage anyone who feels the same as I do to simply stop using the Discord. It doesn't really perform any functions you can't do with your own private servers or on the site itself.