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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Feb 25, 2023 12:49:27 GMT -5
I will note, the most memorable thing I recall from my conversation with Nergal years ago, is the straw that broke the camel's back. That was when Nergal tried to discipline Malifaxis for being awful in-game and several other staff members stepped in to stop him.
Nergal redemption arc?
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Post by mehtastic on Feb 25, 2023 12:59:36 GMT -5
tbh, if you still play this game you either have low self-esteem, an extreme case of sunk cost fallacy, or you're a sex offender. (Not necessarily mutually exclusive.) I don't see how you can not be a member of one or more of these groups after everything that's happened with the game in the last 10 years.
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Post by mehtastic on Feb 25, 2023 13:01:59 GMT -5
I will note, the most memorable thing I recall from my conversation with Nergal years ago, is the straw that broke the camel's back. That was when Nergal tried to discipline Malifaxis for being awful in-game and several other staff members stepped in to stop him.
Nergal redemption arc?
He wanted to ban Malifaxis but the other staff protested/threatened to resign. He tried to lower Malifaxis's karma from 8 to 7 and the other Producers overruled him. For all his faults, Nergal was one of the game's more decent producers, and that's saying something. I'm sure he'd have some interesting things to say about this if he was still around, but he disappeared during the early days of the pandemic, so I'll leave it at that. |
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Post by Azerbanjani on Feb 25, 2023 18:23:55 GMT -5
Nergal already had his redemption arc, when he spilled the beans here. I also got a chance to talk with him on Discord and even though he barely ever slighted me, just passively when he was stressed, he was willing to apologize for his faults and I very quickly felt a legitimate change in him.
Shalooonsh isn't going anywhere sadly, our only hope is that the FBI finds the third woman he's buried in his backyard and the prison he goes to has shit wifi.
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Post by mehtastic on Feb 26, 2023 6:32:54 GMT -5
This appears to be the first reference to this thread in the "official" part of the community, so I'm going to post it here before the staff take it down for harming the game or whatever nonsense:  And for those who would like to read the thread themselves: gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,59056.0.html |
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Post by Prime Minister Sinister on Feb 26, 2023 8:07:25 GMT -5
Nergal already had his redemption arc, when he spilled the beans here. ah heck, i'd forgotten all, reading the thread, i didnt even know about that :x |
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bebop
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Post by bebop on Feb 26, 2023 11:29:22 GMT -5
Hi there, everyone. For those of you that have left me encouragement, thank you. And thank you to those that helped format my post and get me access here.
I am going to keep my replies here instead of the official Armageddon forums as (obviously) my posts would be deleted and I would be told to “go through the proper channels” aka the request tool or a staff member. I’m no longer going to be doing that, as I have been going down those channels for years with the same proof I’ve shown here that nothing has been done. The last snippet included in my original post was the result of a complaint I made. You can see how that went.
I saw that on the official boards someone began a post about sexual harassment, and the replies were along the usual lines of “just file a complaint.” I think it was slightly lost in all of this that the final snippet I showed was a log of a sixteen year old girl character who was flayed naked while screaming and staff decided “that did not constitute as torture and did not require consent.”
So what have I learned? Requests don’t work. Staff don’t enforce the rules. Consent and sexual harassment aren’t taken seriously.
I have said this many times and I will say it again. The lack of transparency and veil of secrecy staff enforce does nothing but serve to dampen and outright hide behaviors that we’re told are not happening and are against the rules. It enables behaviors that are unfair to players at best and endangers them at worse. That may sound dramatic but women being sexually harassed and assualted in real life is not a laughing matter. Armageddon should not be a gateway for exposure t to that. I’m no longer going to abide by staff’s rules of secrecy in this case as they have done nothing but cause someone who is clearly predatory to continually be sheltered in their ranks.
What is the other issue here and my main focus in this? That sexual harassment is not only happening in game but (far more concerning) it is happening in the real world. Here is a list of people in the Armageddon community that have come out against Shalooonsh.
Bebop - Claims that Shalooonsh groomed her at age 23 by inappropriately using staff information to find out who she was and then proceeded to abuse, cheat, steal. In that time learning he had dated underage girls in his thirties. He has then directly and indirectly stalked her for years.
Shaleah - Accused Shalooonsh of being inappropriate in real life, as well as harassing her over Discord. I don’t know much more detail, she would have to share.
Cuusaardo - Accused Shalooonsh of touching her inappropriately and without her consent
Belgiokiss - Asked Shalooonsh not to discuss me (Bebop) with her. He (within days) did so and she blocked him. Again, refusing to accept her boundaries he went on to the social media of husband of twelve years and tried to manipulate her into returning by offering her sponsored roles in the game. Showing not only a lack of boundaries, but his willingness to manipulate players with favoritism.
Delirium - Requested no further interaction with Shalooonsh which was not respected, and requested that he stop circulating information about her which he did not do.
This new player who made an accusation on Reddit here about being coerced towards erotic role play and offered sponsored roles by Shalooonsh in exchange for communication:
This thread Here.
These are only a few of the well known ones within our community. There are more, lesser known cases and there are many other real life incidents. I can confidently say there are other complaints along these lines that have never seen the light of day. Many of these complaints and posts mirror one another. What do they have in common?
--- Non-consensual in-person touch or acts of aggression.
--- A consistent pattern of ignoring and crossing boundaries established by the victim.
--- Lack of concern or comprehension of consent
--- Obsessive stalking, gravitating, and involvement with these players.
--- These people have been members of the community and all have left due to the treatment they’ve experienced.
--- This staff member using their platform on Armageddon to continue this behavior, putting the onus on the victims to simply leave because staff will not protect them.
--- Making players uncomfortable
--- Abusing staff information constantly and in real time to alter many player’s experience
This isn’t just in game sexual harassment. It’s out of character harassment and manipulation with Armageddon MUD as the consistent factor that enables this person and is the gateway towards the player and sometimes in-character proximity. I’d also like to post one of the moments in question that I brought up in my original. Again, as I said, I am comfortable that I have receipts to back-up everything I’m saying.
The rakish, shadow-tressed man sends a telepathic message to the kinky-haired, whiskey-eyed man:
"Yes, she does like it from behind. She prefers it rough, but you wouldn't know that from her drowsy eyes."
Sipping quietly, leaned back as though listening to someone in the room though she sits alone, you drink the water.
The kinky-haired, whiskey-eyed man sends a telepathic message to the rakish, shadow-tressed man:
"Thank you. Let us say, for instance, Allanak were to move north, considering all this affair going on? Wha- ... (link struggling with surprised mirth) ...ahem..what, ah..are the odds Allanak wishes to move through the Outpost - and.."
I want to comment that my character never engaged sexually with another PC and never ERP’d anyone. This comment made me sick because Shalooonsh’s character, as I said, continued to obsess over mine despite her having almost no contact with him. This very rapey comment felt like a thinly veiled insult directed towards the player (me) and not towards the character. I’m almost positive this was intended to break the fourth wall, as we’ve established that Shalooonsh is Kitanius, he knew I was on the other side of the screen and that I was listening, as he was on his staff account simultaneously.
The other element of this is, again, this staff member knows that I am on the other side of the screen and I have had to threaten legal action for harassment. But he still continued to say things like this and obsess over my character. We continue to see an almost fifty year old individual that will not respect boundaries. And even another element is that sexually derogatory comments were used in a sexist way to try to denigrate and demean a female leader in game (and out of character for that matter.)
However, as I said, I’m far less concerned about character matters at the moment. My concern is for women, trans people and some men being harassed sexually and generally both in and out of character by this person.
At this point I feel like just by playing the game I am being complacent and enabling this behavior and I cannot do it anymore. Again, if staff want to make amends and discuss this as equals and actually address this situation I am willing to discuss this. My Discord DMs are open, hell I’ll speak to them on voice chat or video. Put a face to a name. But I’m not going to have conversations anymore through these weird, private, authoritarian channels.
This absolutely cannot continue. It’s wrong. And if you don’t care about that, at least consider that it’s hurtful to player numbers and the game. The players need to know and when I’ve tried to inform them on the official boards my posts have been deleted and I’ve been told that’s one for the request tool.
As for where I’m at, at this point? As I said. I enjoy the game. I think it has beautiful moments and some good people. However, no recreational activity is worth abuse. I agree, it’s not healthy or sane to engage in that kind of thing as some people have said here.
The onus is on staff to protect players so that this is not their experience. So far, these complaints have been arising for ages and by the simple fact that Shalooonsh is still on staff we can see that their track record is to not take this seriously or respect their women players. I’d love for arm to be a fun place with a healthy community, but that takes REAL staff action and not continuing to bury this or gaslight players into feeling they need to accept the blame.
The entire system is designed so that players fear retaliation or loss of karma, favoritism and even ability to play if they come out about this kind of thing. You really have to be ready to leave the game entirely if you want to advocate for yourself.
It’s unfortunate, because you’re allowing people to be victimized in your community and then giving them no recourse but to leave and then asking about player retention. I’m not really sure what more I can say. At this point it is not the exception it is crystal clear something is very wrong.
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Post by mood on Feb 26, 2023 12:10:04 GMT -5
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delerak
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Post by delerak on Feb 26, 2023 12:22:17 GMT -5
The problem is staff abuse. While this goes well beyond pkilling with avatars, my main gripe, it's the same central problem of staff members facing no repercussions for their actions. This place doesn't have any real activity lately besides this thread, but I don't think anybody who frequents the forums here is surprised by your story.
It all comes down to how long you want to tolerate being in their sand box. So glad I don't play anymore to be honest but I'll continue to check in here to listen to people's stories I think people deserve to be listened to. Telling your story is important to get all that shit off your chest.
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ask
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Post by ask on Feb 26, 2023 13:46:32 GMT -5
He wanted to ban Malifaxis but the other staff protested/threatened to resign. He tried to lower Malifaxis's karma from 8 to 7 and the other Producers overruled him. For all his faults, Nergal was one of the game's more decent producers, and that's saying something. I'm sure he'd have some interesting things to say about this if he was still around, but he disappeared during the early days of the pandemic, so I'll leave it at that. I was one of Nergal's STs at the time, and yep. He was given a lot of flak for this despite... Malifaxis and Shabago making characters, at least 5 in a row, who would "find one another" again and be added to their swanky apartment. And yes, it was like a weird, ERP fixation. Malifaxis pitching a tent right outside Cenyr and gathering. (To which Nergal animated the NPCs and bonked him -- other staff were fucking livid about this.) Malifaxis constantly rolling or trying to roll high karma PCs. (Which is why, IIRC, we started talking about limiting them for the higher karma old accounts. I proposed the cap on psis and sorcerers a long time ago, to which Nergal agreed, but I've already talked about that here.) He should've been deducted karma. He shouldn't have been allowed back on staff. Both Shabago and Shalooonsh's pnotes (character notes) were tagged with their cheating, and yet... here they are, high level admins on the game. Again, I'm not surprised by what Bebop's saying. I think a lot of us tried to just grin and bear it because we enjoy playing with other players. I miss Armageddon if only for the creative boost I got whenever I was able to actually play... which wasn't often on my most recent character, since I was doing staff's job and running events every 1-2 weeks while they did, um, nothing... ah, I digress. But at this rate, staff are really making a case for a new policy they should enact: Staff shouldn't play characters, PERIOD. Staff shouldn't be allowed to talk in a DM to a player without at least one other staffer present in a group DM, much like a doctor can't examine you naked without another employee present -- for the patient/player's safety. It's sad and sick. Edit: I DO wanna say I believe Malifaxis was knocked from 8 to 7 karma due to some fuckery -- by Nergal -- but I can not recall, and I can't dig at my logs ATM because I haven't pulled my old laptop's hard drive out of the moving box where it resides. |
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gibb
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Post by gibb on Feb 26, 2023 22:28:56 GMT -5
Thank you for writing this Bebop. I had a strange experience with Shalooonsh once where he was frustrated with me and threatened to strangle me the way that he strangles his faggot nephew. It was very weird... and it was the nail in the coffin for why I haven't played this game for years. Staff need to take a long, hard look at staff culture. Someone like Shalooonsh should not be able to make it to staff level much less remain on staff for years.
I think this game tends to attract people who are socially isolated. This is especially the case when looking at people who spend a ridiculous amount of time playing. And I think that the pool of players are drawn from for becoming staff are mostly from players with ridiculous amounts of play time. Being socially isolated isn't healthy, and I think that some of the staff in this game have mental health issues. Staff need to take a long hard look at their hiring process. There needs to be clear guidelines that lead towards respecting both players time and feelings. Staff who do not adhere to these guidelines should be demoted quickly. I could be wrong, but I think that currently players move up to becoming staff based on a combination of high engagement, luck, and strong writing skills. Instead, I think the primary criteria for becoming staff should be characteristics like high emotional intelligence, respectful communication, and living with a healthy work/play balance.
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dotto
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Post by dotto on Feb 27, 2023 6:02:05 GMT -5
the way that he strangles his faggot nephew. |
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Post by mehtastic on Feb 27, 2023 7:14:49 GMT -5
Least bootlicking Armageddon player.  |
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Post by mehtastic on Feb 27, 2023 10:18:51 GMT -5
Shabago steps down from Producer and will remain on staff in another role, Shalooonsh steps down from Administrator. Nessalin's temporary retirement is effectively permanent. That leaves Halaster and Brokkr as the producers and Halaster as temp independent admin until replacements are found.  |
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Post by mehtastic on Feb 27, 2023 10:32:26 GMT -5
Halaster locked CirclelessBard's thread because apparently, between the players concerned about the staff sexually harassing players and the staff sexually harassing players, it's actually the first group that's the misbehaving children. If you still play this game or think it will ever get better, you are a dumbass and a mark, full stop.  |
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