Armageddon Staff's Rejection of Shadowboard Players
Feb 21, 2016 20:19:27 GMT -5
BitterFlashback and pinkerdlu like this
Post by punished ppurg on Feb 21, 2016 20:19:27 GMT -5
Hello, friends. It's me, Ppurg.
Sadly, I've been banned today.
In the aftermath of Barka's release of information, the Armageddon staff is using this crisis as an excuse to remove players who they deem "irrationally hostile".
I expect that anyone who was as bold as me to not continually hide the fact I am Asanadas on the GDB & the game will suffer the same sort of ostracization.
Consider yourself informed, this is the route which Armageddon staff are going to take. We've all heard of Godwin's Law... excuse me while I invoke it. "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."-- This decision is fascistic and detrimental to the game.
Here, I'll post my ban appeal as it stands. I'll also post the response, if I even receive one.
I think it is a shame. I loved this game, but having been so rebuked, it leaves me wondering if it's all worth it. Nergal has become the new Nyr -- savaging Jeshin's community in an open forum because the man dared to not immediately condemn a community over the actions of an individual. He has lost all respect in my eyes; not that it will ever matter to him.
Sadly, I've been banned today.
In the aftermath of Barka's release of information, the Armageddon staff is using this crisis as an excuse to remove players who they deem "irrationally hostile".
I expect that anyone who was as bold as me to not continually hide the fact I am Asanadas on the GDB & the game will suffer the same sort of ostracization.
Consider yourself informed, this is the route which Armageddon staff are going to take. We've all heard of Godwin's Law... excuse me while I invoke it. "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."-- This decision is fascistic and detrimental to the game.
Here, I'll post my ban appeal as it stands. I'll also post the response, if I even receive one.
Hello,
This will be an open letter, as well as an appeal of sorts.
It appears I've been banned, from both the GDB and the game. I'd like to start a discussion towards appealing this, or at the very least expressing my side of the issue.
The reason I have been banned is, as I received it: "The staff are no longer going to tolerate players that are irrationally hostile toward staff." Due to the high tensions currently after the Barka release of information, this decision is the definition of a knee-jerk reaction.
I understand that Armageddon is a community which is privately owned, and can make whatever decisions they wish about who can access what; with that stated, I believe that you are failing to understand the viewpoints of a portion of your playerbase. I, personally, believe my critical stance regarding staff's actions is not irrational -- for instance, I have been bullied, threatened, ignored, belittled, and punished beforehand by Nyr and Nessalin, Cavaticus and Talia. These individuals paved the groundwork for me through their disrespectful dialogues with myself (and others) to view the entire staff team of Armageddon as someone who would potentially hurt me, and prevent me from enjoying the environment that I interacted in and helped create.
The hostility towards the staff members is based in the cold fact that there have been staff members equally hostile if not more so to their own players. And, speaking of that, it is readily observable in the public channels; there is no telling what sort of dialogue occurs behind closed doors, in what I would call an echo chamber.
Furthermore, regarding Nergal specifically: I feel he is incapable of being objective and fulfilling his responsibility as an impartial arbitrator regarding this. Viewing the thread on TMC, it is clear that Nergal is over-reacting and casting furious flame on anyone who is even tertiarily involved with discussion over Barka's leaks. His attack on Jeshin is unprecedented and does not reflect the actual guidelines Armageddon staff holds themselves to (which I, ironically, found in Barka's leaks). I feel that Nergal is making a serious mistake here by banning me and no-doubt others who were perhaps brazen enough to not hide their criticisms of Armageddon's staff teams behind anonymous names.
Believe me that if I felt my criticisms could have been accepted, or even tolerated, on the GDB, I would have politely raised them there. However, much as this current decision adds to the standing precedent, the GDB is an echo chamber where dissenting opinions are ignored and punished. For example, I had BCW and Iiyola openly insult me for my posts in the RAT; I don't believe that they are likewise banned nor will they be punished for it, currently.
To conclude this side of my discussion, I must admit that the poor administrative decisions I'm currently suffering from have, sadly, only proved my fears as I went through. This is another notch in fulfilling the fears of like-minded players such as myself; whether they express their concerns openly or not, or if they soothe their frustration through antagonistic posting on a splinter board (a la me). The main blame here is that my criticism's of the staff are irrational; to that I say, From who's point of view? Since I've had no outside bias personally with any staff members in reality, every notion that has come to me was triggered by staff's actions as a collective.
It may seem, from your perspective, that my dissension is irrational. It could be argued that, in the echo chamber that is the GDB (where its own regulars brag and boast about how toxic it is), any dissension is irrational. However, if you were to actually open a dialogue with the playerbase and not only apologize for previous failures, but actively seek out discussion to improve future tensions, you would find that the burden your community faces is that it has lost its faith in the staff to manage or accomplish anything. This is what RedRanger named, "The Culture of Limitation". In my opinion, RedRanger is a saint and paragon of the Armageddon community whom I sorely missed. Is RedRanger's dissension irrational? No; but the method in which he expressed it was much more formal and collected than my own tension-easing expressions. He and I share the same groundwork, disregarding our methods of expression, and believe me that I would be expressing myself just like him if I had the slightest notion it would do any good.
So, in conclusion to this invitation to discussion, I must admit that the same apathy I felt in my arguments with Nyr & Nessalin over the botched resurrection request bubbles to the top again: I don't expect to be unbanned; I don't expect to be welcomed back, or for my opinion to be valued; I don't expect that anything I've ever typed or any issue I've ever raised will be viewed as anything other than a scapegoat and discarded. That is exactly how I feel right now -- as a scapegoat. I have been ever at-the-ready to improve this game, if only I felt that I would have been appreciated as a player. Today, with my collective grievances and the collective grievances of an entire alt-community being written off as "irrational", it's clear to me that this feeling I have been unappreciated all this time has been true.
If you are willing to take this pseudo-catastrophe of Barka's release of years-old information (for the most part irrelevant), as an excuse to ban this 'unappreciated' members like myself from the community, then at least be honest about it. Be honest to me, please; and be honest to your community. I think I deserve that much, since I was honest enough with my grievances to trigger this shaming and banning in the first place.
-Asan.
This will be an open letter, as well as an appeal of sorts.
It appears I've been banned, from both the GDB and the game. I'd like to start a discussion towards appealing this, or at the very least expressing my side of the issue.
The reason I have been banned is, as I received it: "The staff are no longer going to tolerate players that are irrationally hostile toward staff." Due to the high tensions currently after the Barka release of information, this decision is the definition of a knee-jerk reaction.
I understand that Armageddon is a community which is privately owned, and can make whatever decisions they wish about who can access what; with that stated, I believe that you are failing to understand the viewpoints of a portion of your playerbase. I, personally, believe my critical stance regarding staff's actions is not irrational -- for instance, I have been bullied, threatened, ignored, belittled, and punished beforehand by Nyr and Nessalin, Cavaticus and Talia. These individuals paved the groundwork for me through their disrespectful dialogues with myself (and others) to view the entire staff team of Armageddon as someone who would potentially hurt me, and prevent me from enjoying the environment that I interacted in and helped create.
The hostility towards the staff members is based in the cold fact that there have been staff members equally hostile if not more so to their own players. And, speaking of that, it is readily observable in the public channels; there is no telling what sort of dialogue occurs behind closed doors, in what I would call an echo chamber.
Furthermore, regarding Nergal specifically: I feel he is incapable of being objective and fulfilling his responsibility as an impartial arbitrator regarding this. Viewing the thread on TMC, it is clear that Nergal is over-reacting and casting furious flame on anyone who is even tertiarily involved with discussion over Barka's leaks. His attack on Jeshin is unprecedented and does not reflect the actual guidelines Armageddon staff holds themselves to (which I, ironically, found in Barka's leaks). I feel that Nergal is making a serious mistake here by banning me and no-doubt others who were perhaps brazen enough to not hide their criticisms of Armageddon's staff teams behind anonymous names.
Believe me that if I felt my criticisms could have been accepted, or even tolerated, on the GDB, I would have politely raised them there. However, much as this current decision adds to the standing precedent, the GDB is an echo chamber where dissenting opinions are ignored and punished. For example, I had BCW and Iiyola openly insult me for my posts in the RAT; I don't believe that they are likewise banned nor will they be punished for it, currently.
To conclude this side of my discussion, I must admit that the poor administrative decisions I'm currently suffering from have, sadly, only proved my fears as I went through. This is another notch in fulfilling the fears of like-minded players such as myself; whether they express their concerns openly or not, or if they soothe their frustration through antagonistic posting on a splinter board (a la me). The main blame here is that my criticism's of the staff are irrational; to that I say, From who's point of view? Since I've had no outside bias personally with any staff members in reality, every notion that has come to me was triggered by staff's actions as a collective.
It may seem, from your perspective, that my dissension is irrational. It could be argued that, in the echo chamber that is the GDB (where its own regulars brag and boast about how toxic it is), any dissension is irrational. However, if you were to actually open a dialogue with the playerbase and not only apologize for previous failures, but actively seek out discussion to improve future tensions, you would find that the burden your community faces is that it has lost its faith in the staff to manage or accomplish anything. This is what RedRanger named, "The Culture of Limitation". In my opinion, RedRanger is a saint and paragon of the Armageddon community whom I sorely missed. Is RedRanger's dissension irrational? No; but the method in which he expressed it was much more formal and collected than my own tension-easing expressions. He and I share the same groundwork, disregarding our methods of expression, and believe me that I would be expressing myself just like him if I had the slightest notion it would do any good.
So, in conclusion to this invitation to discussion, I must admit that the same apathy I felt in my arguments with Nyr & Nessalin over the botched resurrection request bubbles to the top again: I don't expect to be unbanned; I don't expect to be welcomed back, or for my opinion to be valued; I don't expect that anything I've ever typed or any issue I've ever raised will be viewed as anything other than a scapegoat and discarded. That is exactly how I feel right now -- as a scapegoat. I have been ever at-the-ready to improve this game, if only I felt that I would have been appreciated as a player. Today, with my collective grievances and the collective grievances of an entire alt-community being written off as "irrational", it's clear to me that this feeling I have been unappreciated all this time has been true.
If you are willing to take this pseudo-catastrophe of Barka's release of years-old information (for the most part irrelevant), as an excuse to ban this 'unappreciated' members like myself from the community, then at least be honest about it. Be honest to me, please; and be honest to your community. I think I deserve that much, since I was honest enough with my grievances to trigger this shaming and banning in the first place.
-Asan.
I think it is a shame. I loved this game, but having been so rebuked, it leaves me wondering if it's all worth it. Nergal has become the new Nyr -- savaging Jeshin's community in an open forum because the man dared to not immediately condemn a community over the actions of an individual. He has lost all respect in my eyes; not that it will ever matter to him.
