Recent Concerns and Administrator Expectations

[marimbamonk 1501]

Hello everyone! Zac here – your new Community Manager for Lord of the Craft.
 

Recently a post was made on our forums here by @SneakyTurtles_ called “The Hypocrisy of the Administration and their blatant disregard for Pedophilia”. In the post, SneakyTurtles_ describes how they knew of and had proof of a player on LotC who was committing pedophilic acts. SneakyTurtles_ then went on to describe that, although they had submitted evidence of this person’s wrongdoing to the leadership of our server, nothing had been done to remove the player in question, and it had been nearly a week since the evidence was submitted. There is more to the post than just my simple summary, of course – I recommend you view the entire post by clicking here.

 

In the time since that post was made, the pedophilic player referred to in the post has been banned from Lord of the Craft.

 

Personally, I would like this player to be identified publicly so that our community can be on alert for this person elsewhere on the internet, and so that it may be easier to take further action against them if necessary. I am waiting on a confirmation by the Administration to disclose the player’s identity, as I am not even aware of it – but know that the person has indeed been banned, as confirmed by @501warhead, @SneakyTurtles_, and purportedly @Knox.

 

I also want to take actions to prevent this sort of pedophilic presence and the delays in action against it on LotC in the future – that is a larger endeavor that will be seen to in the coming weeks, and will require clarifications to our rules and conduct. We’ll most certainly have to all work on that together.

 

Administration Expectations

One of the other issues SneakyTurtles_ addresses in their post is the hypocrisy and latency of the Administration – this is corroborated by several members of the community and spelled out in their personal testimonies and experiences found in the replies to SneakyTurtles_ post and elsewhere on Lord of the Craft.

 

I do not want to see these issues go unaddressed, as they seem to have been so far. It is my intention to have the members of our Administration come on a public forum and reflect on their conduct and address some of the concerns our community have. This forum will be your time to respectfully bring forth your complaints and criticism about the recent conduct of our Administration team, and the goal of the forum thereafter is to ensure that the community’s expectations are met by the Admins, and vice versa.

 

This weekend I will be out of town but in the coming days afterwards I will be pushing forward a way for the community to formally leave their input or questions for the incoming public forum (which will most likely be a LotC Talkshow). I would like this public forum to take place next week but I still need to discuss scheduling with the Administration; I’ll keep you guys posted.

 

As I was talking with SneakyTurtles_ about their post, they wanted to make it clear to our community that what they did was a last resort, and that they’ve had no issues with Admins or staff, ever. They did not make their post just to do it, or to try to slander the Administration or go after them.

 

Last Words

Our community should be a safe and fun place for people from all walks of life. The volunteers we promote to leadership for our server should do their utmost in conducting themselves respectfully and swiftly, and as can be seen in SneakyTurtles_’s recent post and in several other places, that hasn’t been happening.

I will be hovering over this post for the rest of the night so if you have questions about this post or questions or concerns for me personally please feel free to reach out.

 

These are our first steps.

 

UPDATE:

I have been informed by the Administration that they will not reveal the username of the banned player in question because of legal reasoning.

[Zacho 2177]

Rad

Im glad that you addressed something like this.

 

also first

[Stuffnthings 215]

Thank you for covering this topic! I appreciate the time you took to come talk to me. Hopefully, this can make lotc better and turn out to have positive results.

[ThumperJack 927]

Very nice, very needed post. Good to see a steady hand taking the lead in community matters. Good luck to ya man.

[Auriel_ 652]

good man, first of many in a line of good stuff

 

[dogbew 267]

Good post, keep it up.

[ThatGuy_777 220]

First short-notice announcement and already coming in strong. Glorious.
 

[Arhbi 181]

I retract my initial doubts about you being appointed as Community Manager. Its good to see that you’re already making attempts to communicate and be transparent with the community, despite only being appointed a few hours earlier. 

 

As for the creep. Super glad that he’s been removed from the server.

[Wendigo 786]

A pedophiles name should be made public. Period.

[Pinsir99 526]

Glad to see you reaching out on the first day with a stellar communication post. Hope this is a sign of the times to come.

[Nonival 147]

Looking forward to the future of having you filling the role of community manager. It'll be a tough job, but based on this and all the work you've done in the past for the LOTC community, I have high hopes!

[Unwillingly 18097]

First, great post. Like seriously, A+.

Second, I feel like the recent sarcastic demeanor from 501 didn't help at all. Namely, these three images. I know a lot of players were simply shocked at these responses. 

Is this really how an admin should be acting in a PUBLIC chat over an issue as serious as pedophilia? Not at all. This was flat out rude, unprofessional, and childish. 

Second, Knox accidentally leaked Annie's IP. Yes, you heard me, her IP was on the forums in a screenshot for a solid ten seconds before the posts were removed. Was it really an accident? Who knows, but I think it was considering he removed it as soon as possible, and even in this situation, I don't think he'd go as far as posting her IP on the forums. Then again, how did he manage to screenshot the convo, paste it, then post it on the forums without realizing? It just seems like he wasn't being observant or something, I don't know. SneakyTurtles could have been DDOSed or a bunch of other **** people can do. We have had criminals who've done this stuff before on LOTC. It's outrageous.


Third, yes, discord messages can easily be forged, but did you say that about all of the other players who have said toxic things via discord? No. Why would you say this about a pedophile though? Because they're a good player who 'has no ban history'? No. This is 501 being bias. End of story.

That's all I have to say, and it's just my view on how poorly things were handled. 

Cheers. 

[Vaynth 3005]

All the respect to this post and your first attempt at reaching out to show the community you care for it's concerns. However I have a small concern and don't take it too strongly, I don't think it's a great idea to have a headline title starting with "concerning pedophilia". A lot of parents keep an eye on their children's online activity and something like this at a quick glance could make them think our server is full of criminals when that's definitely not the case. There are occasionally a few bad apples as with literally everywhere else, and that should be taken care of with haste once adequate evidence is provided. It's fine to touch on these topics but personally I would like to see it done with more consideration for everyone that views the forums. Overall this was refreshing to read and I'm glad the issue was taken care of! Looking forward to seeing what else you have in store.

[Unwillingly 18097]

27 minutes ago, Vaynth said:

All the respect to this post and your first attempt at reaching out to show the community you care for it's concerns. However I have a small concern and don't take it too strongly, I don't think it's a great idea to have a headline title starting with "concerning pedophilia". A lot of parents keep an eye on their children's online activity and something like this at a quick glance could make them think our server is full of criminals when that's definitely not the case. There are occasionally a few bad apples as with literally everywhere else, and that should be taken care of with haste once adequate evidence is provided. It's fine to touch on these topics but personally I would like to see it done with more consideration for everyone that views the forums. Overall this was refreshing to read and I'm glad the issue was taken care of! Looking forward to seeing what else you have in store.

And yes I do agree with what Vaynth had to say. My dad actually walked into my room as I was reading this post, but I luckily closed the tab before he noticed "Pedophilia" on the screen. Whew.

[marimbamonk 1501]

28 minutes ago, Vaynth said:

-snip-

Noted and changed! Thanks for bringing this up, I didn't have that foresight unfortunately.