We Have A Crisis

[Telanir 6434]

I have read every reply and nearly every message in the last few days. This situation has been visceral and real. I took to heart very closely the deep concerns shared by almost every vocal individual who has taken part in this conversation here.

 

I want to say that I am moved by the courage of many individuals who spoke up about repugnant behaviour and inaction. Most importantly, I realize that this problem extends beyond recent events and scope.

 

Yes, I have a life as demanding as anyone else’s—I must sometimes take breaks but the glaring issue is that each time I come back things are in chaos. It seems almost like I can’t leave for long before things break down. Something is fundamentally wrong.

 

All of us understand what kind of environment a roleplay server is—especially one full of young kids, playing Minecraft. What is the most disturbing fact about recent events? There is no way for us to anticipate or to stop a predator from coming. But there is a way to stop them from acting. We can craft an environment so hostile to toxic and predatory behaviour that they would rather leave.

 

LotC is undergoing a crisis with every year we age. Someone who joined in 2011 when they were 16 is now 24. Some of us escape into this platform for better or for worse but some—certainly for the worse. You are simply no longer 16 when you are 24. But some people just don’t mature and they don’t get it. This is a server based in the West and founded on Western values and in our culture the years near the age of 18 are extremely sensitive. It is illegal and immoral. This is worth repeating.

 

In our culture the individual is sacred. The right to be safe from sexual abuse, from racism, sexism, homophobia, and from other forms of radical discrimination.

 

We can’t stop here or else we miss the point. We must deal with this crisis.

 

I have come to realize that access to LotC services is a privilege but also a responsibility. We have to weigh two scenarios. In the first, an innocent player is denied access to LotC services. They find a job, maybe get into a relationship. God knows, maybe they exit the house and make some friends. (I’m kidding). I might be tongue in cheek but the point is, they can’t play a game.

 

Now, please imagine a second scenario with me. An abusive sociopath who uses this platform for their cruel pleasures roams free because the evidence is ‘shaky’.  What happens when they get their hands on impressionable children who just come to enjoy LotC? And then radicalize them? Or abuse them? Or threaten and take advantage of them?

 

Tell me straight that you are willing to weigh this risk equally. I’ll show you the fucking door. Ask any parent in this community how this affects them and their children, then we can talk ‘fairness’.

 

 

Here’s what is happening starting now.

 

We are going to define LotC as a place of safety for people of all origins, races, creeds, ages, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, and any others. It doesn’t matter what someone thinks, this server should be a place of safety for all.

 

I apologize, but I will not argue the point of safety. People have a right to be safe on LotC mediums both physically and mentally. We’ve gotten wind before, of Discords, and other groups that generate and perpetuate toxic ideological and discriminatory behaviour. Why is action not taken? Not enough evidence? Wasn’t done on a public medium? This is fine for cases like rule-breaking, it is relatively benign and is only an offence to the gaming experience. For more serious cases, this is not acceptable. Our own people here suffer for it. Our community does, to which we all have a responsibility. The truth of the matter is people treat these places as extensions of LotC. They aren’t used for anything else, so why should we pretend otherwise?

 

I believe strongly in the community guidelines. I wrote the damn thing and it still holds up, as optimistic as they are. We have failed to uphold them in critical and devastating ways, both in the staff and in the general community. Especially as not just the experience is marred, but safety is jeopardized.

 

For example, revealing identifiable information is a matter that must realistically be punished. Believe it or not, people have made excuses for it, even us in the Administration have. But it is not acceptable. How far does this go? Well, if someone posts a photo of themselves on the forum, you can link to their post but you may not redistribute their content elsewhere.

 

What should you do when your safety is at risk? I am not talking about in-game problems. I am talking physical safety, mental health, discrimination, and et cetera. I suggest you send an email about it. Yes, an email. I suggest this. Why, because you can choose to send an immediate priority notification or you can join the two dozen daily unique senders who flood my Discord inbox every day. I try my best to sort through them. There are exceptions, but I have to say that while LotC is close to my heart, it has a minor stake in my life and doesn’t get my degree or put bread on my table. When I receive emails I can distinguish instantly what is urgent from what is not. And finally, I do not use Discord (or any social media) on my mobile devices, I only have it on my computer. Think what you will, I’m old school that way.

 

[email protected] or [email protected]

 

I believe I understand now. I’ve been afraid, almost religiously, of banning someone who was innocent. Why was this a problem? Because it painted every encounter with this sentiment, the lens of scepticism and “proof”. You know, “facts and logic”. We’re playing mineman and it’s time we treated it less like a simulation of justice and national policing and more like an online game. An online game the equivalent of being at a middle- or high-school.

 

I wish only the best to the falsely accused in real life—the suffering and pain they go through is undeserved and the act itself is callous and sickening. But this brings me to LotC… at most you have to find someplace else to play. There may be some vindictive people who might report you offline out of a personal sense of justice—but if the claims are truly false?—you will easily shake them. Nobody’s going to be imprisoned from an accusation on a mineman server.

 

 

For this reason, we can update our perspective. Safety must be taken care of first.

 

A few days ago, I declared that we will instate investigation bans. These bans are for the period we need to examine information regarding reported sexual abuse, but also any behaviour that may be interpreted as grooming or pedophilia. Targeted harassment and abuse, any form of radical discrimination—especially on basis of identity—are also covered under the scope of investigation bans.

 

I repeat, serious reports will result in investigation bans immediately. Joke reports or false uses of this service will not end well for the fool that does it.

Many of us in this community are parents or will be. There is no sacrifice too great to be made for your children. We have tried time and time again to improve this server and yet while avoiding any meaningful sacrifice. It is impossible. Sacrifice is inevitable if you want true change, or else we will continue solving the issue of safety in the short term.

 

Who will handle these cases? I handle as many as I can but realistically this server is too large for one man. I am considering a safety “task force” or whatever name you prefer, of identifiable people. Public figures who have nothing to hide to step up and put yourself on the line. People expect that their most sensitive and private matters will be handled with respect and confidentiality, but also accountability.

 

I will not accept anyone hiding behind unidentifiable pseudonyms. There is no shame in taking Safety seriously. There is great pride in it. It cannot be a rotating council or a mysterious black box. It must be a trustworthy entity. This is not a “game” initiative. This is a matter deeply personal and real to all of us.

 

Contact me and we will discuss this. If the burden ever becomes too much you may leave. I would be relieved to not have to handle certain things alone. It really tears at you. Now, if you are serious, then please introduce yourself in an email to [email protected]. There are certain chucklefucks who laugh at the notion of email, so this one’s for you. As for the rest of you, let’s get in contact. There will not be more than a few individuals so I apologize if you feel overlooked. This Safety “task force” will oversee [email protected] and investigate cases with full cooperation from the staff. In addition, they will monitor the community mediums on their own time and follow any and all whispers. If this works out it will remain an entity indefinitely.

 

Finally, I have one note. For the few who will try to abuse this system, the punishment is a permanent ban.

 

Thank you,

 

Max.

 

P.S. Yes, I have been contacted about the fruitfulness of our “bans”. The truth of the matter is, a ban doesn’t matter if the person takes advantage of the trust and respect of their peers. Working with banned players, especially those who were banned in the interest of community safety, is a massive problem. What course of action do we have when we remove a predator from Lord of the Craft? Or a radical ideologue? Or an abusive bully? We can restrict all known aliases of theirs from our services.

 

But what happens when not only do they alt, but they also leverage the trust of their inner circle to exert power covertly? Then we are powerless. If some of us welcome these people back with open arms, what will it matter that we ‘banned’ them? No more.

 

P.P.S. We have also updated the Terms & Conditions to reflect this topic.
 

[Tythus 1302]

Please can the commentary be kept respectful and constructive there will be further changes announced also soon

[mitto 2308]

I highly recommend reading the thread before jumping to a conclusion for fast rep and the first comment

 

Edit: @TrendE Then i kinda expect better than a strawman response of 'Oh so this means you're going do this now'. This thread does tackle the issue, it's going to be used to do more than that too.

 

I know you're pissed at Telanir but instantly pushing back as soon as he opens his mouth isn't going to help. If you have a better idea, make one.

[Knox 1027]

Nice.

[Harri 4814]

glad it’s started getting through to you regardless of whether this post achieves anything

[rukio 8913]

2 minutes ago, mitto said:

I highly recommend reading the thread before jumping to a conclusion for fast rep and the first comment

I did

[Llir 5773]

This past week has been a wake up call to issues in our community which had long gone unspoken of. I hope that this will start a new chapter on LOTC. I am confident that the staff is honest and dedicated in wanting to lead this new direction.

[Pogmeister 91]

I honestly haven’t kept up with all of these pedophile posts because most of them are longer than the lore posts on the forums; despite this, I find that this post is a pleasant step forward for not only the admins but the staff as a whole. Many people seem unhappy even with this, but I thank you, Telanir, for speaking out about this situation.

[Dogged 2148]

epic

[Harri 4814]

only thing is you actually have to enforce this and have people willing to enforce it, which hasn’t been the same for every other change you’ve made on the server

dont just make this big post about a huge revamp to the way staff works and vanish for another 6 months because nothing will happen and people will just be dissappointed in you even more than they are

[ReveredOwl 5410]

the bottom bit, are u going to finally start banning players who knowingly accept/play with banned players?

[Lark 2227]

The best thing you could do for LotC is finally let it die, and let someone else start something new. (or just let it stay dead). The effort is appreciated but this wasn’t it. The administration has relied on words for too long, and all of the actions they have taken have only been more and more contradictory and controversial with every passing month.

 

End it, it’s like watching a friend slowly wither and die from cancer. Except the doctors, government, and everyone but the people who have no say want to keep them alive.

 

P.S. Tythus providing that little secondary post only made this post more disingenuous.

[mitto 2308]

1 minute ago, Narthok said:

This post is entirely out of touch. Its going to be used to gas ‘toxic’ and ‘problematic’ players that don’t actually break rules. Rather they’re just extremely critical of the absolutely insane staff incompetence. The server is plagued with rampant child abuse and pedophelia and he’s gone off on some stupid rant about radical ideologues and banned players. Maybe clean your own house and make it so warclaims don’t have a seven week turn around. Maybe interact with the playerbase more than once every two months.

You guys are really playing the victim card by finding yourselves as a target in one of the addressed issues in this thread. Even before anything has even been acted upon. Perhaps if you're super anti-Semitic against players they will email of harrassment, I highly doubt people are going to be banned for jokes.

 

Half of you are claiming nothing will be done, half of you are claiming it'll be me. How about you give the system time to actually come into effect, or propose better systems instead of ripping on something prematurely.

 

Things are being addressed one at a time, why do you expect a cure all thread to come up. Be patient, it's not even been a week yet

[Wrynn 1347]

It’s great that we’re speaking up about the situation – after all the server is a big community and I recon it’s right that everyone is aware of any threats that exist within the community as well as knowing about what’s being done to combat them. Although sadly this isn’t the first iteration of paedophilia that the server has seen and this isn’t the first type of response to a situation like this that we’ve seen.

 

Realistically at the end of the day it’s all well and good to make a post and try and bring some clarity to the situation however it’s the action that matters. We, as a community, have seen this happen before and to see it happen again is the conclusion of broken promises and heavy idleness within the higher-ups on the staff. I doubt that this message will reach the community in the way as it’s intended as administrator word doesn't mean much now, and I don’t blame the community who thinks that. Having to email someone when you feel that your safety is at risk because the person who is supposedly keeping you safe won’t take the time to listen to you if you’ve sent a message over discord? It doesn't sound very caring to me, and it doesn’t sound like these actions are being taken out of care for the community, instead taken out of a need to make a response.

 

In essence; **** or get off the pot and let someone who has a deep passion for the community sit on the pot.

[TrendE 1324]

4 minutes ago, mitto said:

You guys are really playing the victim card by finding yourselves as a target in one of the addressed issues in this thread. Even before anything has even been acted upon. Perhaps if you're super anti-Semitic against players they will email of harrassment, I highly doubt people are going to be banned for jokes.

 

Half of you are claiming nothing will be done, half of you are claiming it'll be me. How about you give the system time to actually come into effect, or propose better systems instead of ripping on something prematurely.

 

Things are being addressed one at a time, why do you expect a cure all thread to come up. Be patient, it's not even been a week yet

Because we have seen posts that promise things from Telanir since he came back earlier this year, and they have consistently made the server worse.

This sums it up perfectly: 
 

3 minutes ago, Wrynn said:

In essence; **** or get off the pot and let someone who has a deep passion for the community sit on the pot.

 

If you actually care about this issue/topic, then respond to my Discord PM & I’ll voice the concern/issue that a lot of players have.