BETTER CALL MICK

[Mickaelhz 4300]

Better Call Mickaelhz

 

Hey friends, the main cause of sleep deprivation in people between the ages 13 and 30 speaking here. As all the other rep farms on this topic have stated, two of my dear friends have been banned. These are two players that I’ve spent a lot of time around and I was honestly quite surprised when I heard they got banned for toxicity. 

 

This post will not be me getting on my knees to get my friends unbanned, 

but rather publicize some knowledge that not everyone has access to in order to correct the narrative put forward by administration. 

 

 

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Twi and Ryan are just two people that wanted to have fun with their friends on minecraft, not two evil monsters that bullied people off of the server. This post was not made to villainize administration, I am completely for their efforts of trying to make the server a better place and I wholeheartedly want to believe they are acting out of good faith and for the wellbeing of the server. Therefore, I will personally flag any comments on this thread that contain any toxicity towards administration so they may be handled by moderation accordingly. I do this strictly to promote clear and honest communication instead of a witch hunt.

 

Before making this post I allowed Twi and Ryan to explain themselves to me as I’ve made it clear to them that I won’t stand for major toxicity coming from anyone who associates with myself or any groups I associate with.

 

Now, I would like to say that this entire situation could’ve been prevented if there was clearer communication between administration and nation leaders, since according to Twi and Ryan there has never been a black-on-white warning about their behavior during the “several months” that squakhawk claims twi was terrorizing playerbases for. If the administration wants to suddenly crack down on ooc politics and NL attitude on LOTC you would think they’d have a down to earth conversation with community leaders before handing out bans.

 

Now let’s go over this public statement made by the administration regarding the ban. I will refrain from demanding proof out of respect for the people who made the report. I highlighted everything I disagree with. 

 

Spoiler

SPOILER

 

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STATEMENT FROM SQUAK	Say it ain't so
Let's just start with this brief preface. We, the Administration, are always working tirelessly and try our very hardest to ensure the best for the community and server as a whole, considering everyone who helps build our collective narrative. From time to time, decisions need to be made to reflect that ideal, and sometimes like in this case, the community doesn’t understand how or why we possibly made this decision. This occurs especially in cases where a lot of evidence is submitted under the mutual understanding of confidentiality which cannot under any circumstance be broken. In every report, we do our best to see the full context of the scenario, and have actively kept up to date with reports (new and old) to make sure we have the full story and all the developments.	For full context, it’s important to get at least some piece of insight from the defending side. Allowing them to privately and discreetly justify their actions, especially considering the fact that twi doesn’t talk in voice chats and that it’s rather easy to mistake plain text for sarcasm or jest. Maybe this was done to protect the victims of the situation but even then still, they should be allowed to atleast make a case.
In regards to Twi's ban - over the last several months their actions and behaviour have shown us reason to be concerned. Before the conception of what is now the modern-day Celianor, Twi made it their goal to establish their own High Elven player group. Towards this end, they would do whatever necessary to see their ideal achieved. Instead of establishing their own Settlement and starting their group's journey there, they opted to attempt to coup Haelun’or instead. The prospect of taking over a pre-existing Nation with all its players and perks was all but too alluring. Their intentions however remained the same.	This paragraph made it seem like Twi was an absolute outsider in the Haelunor community and that she was trying to strip away everything that made Haelunor, Haelunor. It is rather easy to spin a story and paint a player as an external threat, a villain when you disregard all previous efforts of them trying to help Haelunor.  Twi actually was a  dedicated member of Haelunor for a bit and showed genuine care and respect for their community and culture. This was when Iverach led Haelunor. She poured in so much time and effort that she was offered a vassal, which isn’t a thing to be disregarded since Haelunor only had a singular other vassal at the time. (being ando alur). I asked Twi for some screenshots to prove this.  Here you can see her discussing where her vassal is going to go. Just because she wasn’t part of the inner Haelunorian OOC clique doesnt mean that she was a complete random nobody. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/996975070561980527/997043518411378748/unknown.png?width=642&height=676 https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/996975070561980527/997043670576545853/unknown.png And in this following  statement from Hogobojo it’s clear that administration also considered twi’s group of supporters were “players from within the pre-existing Haelunorian community”. So was she a part of it or just a random outsider? I’m confused. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/996975070561980527/997041511839584326/unknown.png?width=464&height=468
They wished to create their own High Elven community. Thus, they would plan to take over the Nation and had intentions to change it quite considerably. They intended to replace all the Haelun’orian culture and structures with that of their own. They wished to take over a community they weren't part of and rip it down, possibly leading to a considerable part of the playerbase leaving altogether. Towards that end, they even asked their friend oocly to infiltrate the nation and to hand it over to themselves.	Here administration claims that twi aimed to destroy the Haelunorian culture, something which is also easy to claim when you disregard the fact that twi came to terms with the other members of the Haelunor leadership and made an agreement to keep most (if not all) key aspects of Haelunorian culture in place including purity, laws and their constitution. Let us briefly compare the constitutions written during, before and after Twi was involved with Haelunor.   This was the constitution that was posted for haelunor under twi  https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/211217-the-ibarellan-constitution-of-70sa/?tab=comments#comment-1904236 This was the constitution before her https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/202136-the-first-sohaeriate-constitution-of-the-silver-state-of-haelunor/ This was the constitution after (haelunor given to puffables again by this current administration.) https://www.lordofthecraft.net/forums/topic/211322-the-reformed-silver-constitution-of-haelunor/?tab=comments#comment-1904926   I’m not going to write a political thesis comparing them but  if you don't want to take my word, have a look and form your own opinion. In short: Twi kept most cultural aspects the same and showed clear respect for Haelunorian history, she even took the Haelunorian title of “Uthir” instead of the Malinorian ``Princess”.
While the Administration does not permit bias toward any nation, we do care deeply for each individual player group, and if something would threaten to wipe out their existence as Twi had stated multiple times, this is a problem. This leads to some of the more publically problematic behaviors Twi displayed which were extremely worrying to anyone with roleplay in their best mind.	Wars on lotc create an us-vs-them-mentality 100% of the time, statements like this aren’t rare and shouldn’t be considered harassment or toxicity without proof of her actions taken against the Haelunorian player base. This isn’t even a realistic thing to accomplish on lotc, there’s a million posts and wiki pages about Haelunor. You tell me how this is a realistic goal and not just a quirky statement coming from a place of frustration.
However we gave Twi the benefit of the doubt; that they did have roleplay at heart, and that perhaps the evidence we had at the time for their OOC motives was out of context. We agreed to move past this and give them a chance to establish their own community with every support we could provide.	thumbs up
After this, modern-day Celianor, the one you all know now was established. This seemed like a great thing for the server as a new group, very different and unique from the Haelun’orian one was created. As time went on, the activity numbers started to climb and climb. However, despite this, Twi still would engage in several ooc plots to suit their agenda. OOC threats, ramblings on destroying various nations, their cultures, their playerbases, both in target of an unrelated handful of people and their characters, and simply (with quote) because they could. Twi stated verbosely how they would not stop attempting to destroy other playerbases to the best of their ability until they were stopped by Administration/Moderation, and would then continue to push the limit. Twi was not alone in this, and for months had ranted about these goals to wipe out multiple playerbases, using their own as a platform to do so. Within the last month, Twi stated in three separate chats sent to Administration that Celia'nor was simply a means to an end to destroy every playerbase which might have displeased them.	The Celianor community didn’t just come falling out of the sky, they are friends twi made being an active figure in elven roleplay, people from my own old settlement (myrine) and even a bunch of Haelunorians. Actual known Haelunorians, not just random citizens. I asked Twi to provide some mcnames as examples and she listed the following :    Zonty (used to be military leader)   Mori (no explanation needed)   Nook (no explanation needed)   Emma (no explanation needed)   Caelria (In my opinion one of the best (if not the best) Haelunor leader in recent history)   At the end of the day, to my knowledge, she didn’t even come close to destroying Haelunor as a player base. Haelunor has been very weak in comparison to the past for a long time now, Haelunor leadership has been passed around almost as much as orcish leadership and has been struggling to keep up with the server. If anything twi just made a better high elven settlement and gave a lot of high elves a less stagnant, fresh  place to roleplay. She was the best thing to happen to high elven roleplay since Caelria. If it was really in the best interest of the administration to protect communities under threat of being destroyed, why would they target a nation leader of one of the largest nations on the server and put their community at risk as well.    On another note, squak speaks of a certain limit. This limit was never communicated with either twi or ryan, never were they asked to readjust their attitude against Haelunor. Never were they asked to simmer down a bit and let Haelunor catch a breather despite this conflict being ongoing for a very, very long time (according to squak). Instead Twi and ryan were only met with infuriating staff statements, rulings and judgements to add fuel to the fire.    https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/971590384666935348/972758729135124490/unknown.png (I will stop any attempt you try to taking over the high elves just because I can)
These are serious accusations we received, and while this behavior was perceived in both OOC chat and Forum posts alone from earlier this year, this is unacceptable. If we wish to move forward as a role-playing community, we cannot have leaders dedicated to trying to swing their weight in game to abuse and ego on people OOCly. There should be no excuse for what is practically quoted, if not directly quoted, above. There should be no excuse for wanting to push limits and destroy player bases for amusement or to prove some point. This community is driven by roleplay. Let us be clear- this is not, nor will ever be, any form of roleplay we condone.	I have been involved in so many bits and pieces of conflict during my time and lotc and this is just what LOTC culture has become. You don’t actually gain anything substantial from a war other than bragging rights. This on its own promotes a horrible attitude between nation leaders that are at war. It creates a toxic, frustrating environment that I hope not many people will have to deal with anymore. If you wish to suddenly promote a great change of attitude in nation leaders, make nation leaders staff members and closely monitor them to play nice. Force them to be held by higher standards.   P.S. This community is not driven by roleplay, it's driven by ooc friendships.. Which is understandable since the server could be considered a very small community where everyone knows everyone, this is just bound to happen.  Saying LOTC is a server driven by roleplay is probably the most ignorant and dishonest statement in this post. RP is just the medium.
They would harass members of the Vale and Haelun’or publically pre and post the war, constantly trying to get them to join Malinor through bullying, OOC pressure, blackmail, and other means. When they refused, Twi stated their intention to then conquer them. They’d mention this constantly oocly about how they wanted to destroy them. This need to destroy communities and harass their players off the server, is without saying, unacceptable. The harassment of these players and nations, to make them conform to their demands is against our Mission Statement of Roleplay First. By acting with all these ooc plots with no roleplay intention, driven entirely by ego and manipulation, it is clear that they don’t care for any of the other communities and just want to exert OOC pressure onto other players and destroying their communities whilst manipulating their own into being a platform which enables so. This attitude and mindset is counterintuitive to roleplay and one that a player shouldn’t have. Yes, many players would like to see a community die, but this obsession with killing off several landed communities for simple purpose of 'I could', is damning in it of itself.	Name a single war where one side hasn’t been upset with the other side and made ignorant statements coming from a place of frustration. Impossible challenge. 99% of people can’t do this.   The admins have told you a story of two nation leaders who plotted to destroy communities. Let me propose a different story: two players who tried to make the most of restrictive war rules to revive Elven rp, a fading nation that lost the mantle of High Elven subrace to them, and an administration that has been more than happy to use their positions to protect their friends from rp politics.    This situation is what happens when you restrict conflict rp to such an extent that the only way out nation leaders see is scheming and manipulation. This paragraph made it seem like Twi just wanted to devour a community and bully their people off of the server. No, she was trying to save an entire race (the high elves) from deteriorating into inactivity again. She wanted to bring them into a strong position on the server, this being with malinor, with the rest of the elves. It was Haelunor’s ROLEPLAY decision to refuse becoming  ROLEPLAY friends with Malinor and if the ROLEPLAY consequences for that decision is to face steel, then that should be allowed and not blocked by administration, regardless of any ooc beef/toxicity/statements/personalities. Twi has made multiple attempts to deal with this situation in ROLEPLAY, and after crossing a million hurdles put up by administration and getting nowhere, administration acts surprised that they find statements from twi that clearly harbor no ill will, but frustration instead.  She just gave up being mistah nice guy.   This has been a thing that has existed since before I joined the server and unless you monitor NL’s more closely nothing will change. Nothing. Banning these two leadership figures from one of the largest communities on the server Won’t change how wars are handled, it won’t change how opposing nation leaders treat each other. It won’t change the toxic culture around wars. It just shows that an administration without clear direction is still willing to influence ROLEPLAY politics to shield their old friends from being tossed around on minecraft.   This isn’t actually about upholding the sanctity of RP - more RP was created, and more RP activity was made, from Malinor over these past few months than most other settlements and nations have had in years. Whatever Monkee and Twi may have (or not have) said OOCly, it’s clear that it never actually affected the RP on the ground. They never conquered Haelun’or, never destroyed Haelun’or or its RP, and never really did much besides build up their own RP in Malinor, fight a small war against the orcs, and vibe. An attempt to escalate the conflict in RP through war was basically shut down by staff. If this is the product of the most nefarious OOC plotting the server has seen, something that’s apparently worse than what any other NL has done, then we must have the most RP-oriented server ever.   At worst, Monkee and Twi probably spoke oocly about their rp political intentions. This is a stupid reason to ban nation leadership; it’s something they all do, and always have done. It’s something Haelun’or and the Vale have done (in addition to shit-talking, harassment, player-sniping, and a number of other malicious things). It’s something Oren and the Tripartite have done and are doing now (and they’ve definitely said worse things about opposing communities). It’s something that is a part of politics on LoTC. Now, this obviously doesn’t excuse it, but we have to question whether what Monkee and Twi were saying was beyond the pale or not - especially since neither of them have active infractions, warnings, or recent bans. Without evidence presented, can we really trust that the admins have their hands on logs that actually demonstrate any sort of danger that Monkee and Twi pose, or are they just stretching the truth based off of a few screenshots to justify a major ban?   I don’t really understand how plotting to defeat your irp enemies is destroying communities. First and foremost, it’s politics and it’s rp. It’s ironic that you claim Monkee and Twi are guilty of bringing rp into ooc by this plotting when you’re basically saying when it comes to nations, the rp narrative driven by politics should take a backseat to how ooc groups feel about the rp. That’s reflected in your ban reasoning and it’s reflected in your war rules. Somewhere along the line you started equating irp harm to nations with ooc harm to their communities. As someone who’s been involved in all forms of conflict, it really makes you wonder where we draw the line between rp conflict and ooc harassment. More and more, staff has humored the trend of players blurring the lines between themselves and their characters, and taken action to protect their characters on the basis that it’s protecting their players. The argument that rp-born destruction of nations leads to destruction of communities and players being forced from the server is misplaced anyway, most people just go play somewhere else on lotc with their friends. Despite this, it’s also funny because you weren’t really thinking about protecting communities when you shot Monkee’s snow elves in the head, were you? Pretty sure they were also a “landed community”.

 

 

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END OF SPOILER

 

In short : we’re a tiny minecraft community just talk to them. If you want to ban people because you don’t like them, just be honest about it instead of spinning a narrative to make them seem like bad people. I understand that the administration might be too prideful to retract official statements but please don't satanize Twi & Ryan. Where was all this community care when the high elves forced snow elves to wear gold stars and live in tiny hutts? Such a loving community of kind hearted individuals & victims of ooc terror.

 

On an ending note, I believe administration brought up an important issue with the LOTCtm culture.. but banning community leaders without warning isn’t the right solution.

If the administration actually cares about finding a solution to this greater problem, this is my business card.

 I know a thing or two about wars/leading nations/conflict and can provide valuable insights (smile).
 

 

- Your loving friend, Mickaelhz (always here for you)

 

 

[subatomic 1498]

I will call you soon

[mika1278 3213]

it's about time

[creamynoteblock 3256]

 

[Pancho 4197]

Based and Mick pilled

[haenselover45 834]

so in-depth and detailed, spittin facts

[The Tough Guy 4319]

what a legend

[Ryanark 2738]

we do a little gatekeeping

[louislxix 3198]

that's on bboon

[cappor 563]

holy guacamole you're based 

[WhistleBlower__ 12]

I truly find it interesting that so much is made in the argument of roleplay over OOC. Whenever I hear such arguments I think back to the wonderful moment when a member of the Admin team threatened other Admins to blackball their agenda if they didn't vote a certain way with regards  to Hauelnor. 

Imagine this:
"I won't vote on your admin Agenda if you vote against me on Haeulnor"

[Willstertheking2 1110]

Spoiler

Yes Grammar is misspelt. Irony haha

 

As someone banned from Celia'nor for ooc reasons. Yeah, this ban is ridiculous. If they actually harassed people that should be the basis but the fact that admins have boiled it down to ooc nation leaders go brrr. All NL's go brr. I have never met one who hasn't and I did my best to minimize it but I certainly was far from perfect. (And most players have ooc bs behind their actions, as Mick said, this server is built on friendships and rp is the medium its expressed on)

I agree that Ryan and Twi can be too ooc at times. But the reference to the HLNR situation and The Vale are clear areas that show a lack understanding of the picture that the admins are trying to paint. 
I'll stop cause Mick said it far better than I ever could. This is dumb. Lotc go brrr.

 

[garentoft 9265]

mick's the best lawyer on lotc and he's proven it again

[outcook 799]

well needed post. 

[subatomic 1498]

4 minutes ago, WhistleBlower__ said:

I truly find it interesting that so much is made in the argument of roleplay over OOC. Whenever I hear such arguments I think back to the wonderful moment when a member of the Admin team threatened other Admins to blackball their agenda if they didn't vote a certain way with regards  to Hauelnor. 

Imagine this:
"I won't vote on your admin Agenda if you vote against me on Haeulnor"

Lol

Edited July 14, 2022 by subatomic profitable
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