It likely comes as no surprise that the past several months have been rather hostile in the region, with hurt feelings on many sides. The line between in-character and out-of-character attacks is blurry and easy to trip over.

That said, we cannot allow sustained attacks on any particular group of people. After multiple reports from players, we found that there is clear and ongoing harassment of a specific group and a willingness to twist words and language made in good faith towards other purposes.

Members of the administration team — and many others in the region — have tried unsuccessfully to mediate what can only be described as a disaster within the region. Seeing that it ultimately failed, we’ve been left with no alternative actions.

Commencing immediately, Escade and Tim will be removed from the forums for a period of eight months. It is hoped that this will result in significant cooling of tensions in the region.

This is not an easy decision to make and, we imagine, not an easy decision to hear. We are happy to answer any lingering questions and will be commencing an Assembly discussion in the coming days to develop procedures to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

Reply

At last, the battle is over.

However, to substantiate your claims, perhaps you could offer evidence of their wrongdoing for those who are not aware of the fine details? I do hope it is not a bother, but actions like these require an extensive amount of evidence to collect and present to the general populace.

Make your case. I am relieved that the toxicity will be over, but, to dispel any doubts or conspiracies of "OH NO COUP" or "OH NO OLIGARCHIC TYRANNY", gather evidence to support this action.

Deputy Regional Minister of the Planning and Development Agency(March 8-May 19, 2014)

Local Council Member(April 24-August 11)

Court Justice of TSP(August 15-December 7)

Quotes

"The 1% is like a 1% battery charge. It will die out if it is not charged(the charge is the 99%). But if you don't charge it, it will die for sure, sooner or later"
- Me (2001- Present)

"Change is the world's blood"
- Me (2001-Present)

[Image: 9ehfkQV.png]

Reply

Having seen part of that "festival" unfold, I am a bit relieved it can finally cool down...

Woof, woof, I'm a dog I like dogs.

Legislator in the Assembly of the South Pacific.
Member of the Island Democratic Party.
Former Local Councillor in the South Pacific.

 

Reply

Thank you, administrators.

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

Reply

^ what Somy said.

Midwesterner. Political nerd. Chipotle enthusiast. 
Minister of Culture of the South Pacific // Former Prime Minister

Reply

As somehow who was subjected to this harassment, and knows several others who were forced from this region because of it, thank you to the admins indeed.

I certainly didn't want things to come to this. At least, perhaps some of us can finally have some peace of mind.

Reply

As someone who is a good personal friend of someone who suffered from this toxicity, I do trust the right decision was made.  I want to thank Tsu for your firm leadership here.

I do have a question though - will further details/information be shared with us(and NS world at large?).  It's troubling seeing the accusations made against this government on the official NS forums, although I suppose that's par for the course?  As someone who is very unaware of most of the deep politicking going on, it's a bit of an annoyance to know that our government/region has such a negative reputation and being hard to articulate why.  Again - I deliberately stay apolitical, but I don't see like seeing my region's reputation tarnished so.

Land Without Shrimp

Reply

Sad to see it had to go this far.

Reply

Having not been active in the region since April, I cannot speak to the events surrounding this sudden ban.
I do however have several questions related to it regarding the evidence, and circumstances surrounding it.
- Will the evidence be shared with either banned party?
- Will the evidence be shared with the region at large?
- What, if any, warnings were issued to the banned parties prior to them being banned?
- If no warnings were issued prior to an outright ban, what historical precedent was used to come to that conclusion?

If the Administration Team would please review these above questions and provide a response, it would be greatly appreciated.

Semi-Unretired

Reply

We received complaints and testimonies from a diverse group of TSPers. In general, individual complaints and testimonies won't be shared publicly, because those people deserve and reasonably expect a level of anonymity. The admins aren't going to do anything that will just give Tim and Escade ammo from wherever they plant their feet after TSP. Despite addressing the horrible behavior in TSP, NationStates is a very... porous and networked game, and it's the unfortunate case that they can continue attacking from afar, with plenty of regions that will gleefully offer them the platform to do so.

There isn't one single event that led to these bans, though there were some significant incidents over the past several months. It's a behavioral problem overall, not a flame that happened on this day or a troll that happened on that day. Trying to provide a litany of quotes would likely lack the context that many in TSP already know. "Death by a thousand cuts" is the apt metaphor-- each individual cut doesn't seem that serious, but combined together it's deadly. As Tsu's OP says, the bans are in response to several months' worth of behavior problems, fighting, personal attacks, targeted bullying, a general (OOC/person-behind-the-nation) hostility that goes well beyond what the community is willing to put up with. People can fight and dislike each other in our open community, but there's a line. Is it clearly defined? I'm not sure that's possible, and part of our job as a community is to really talk about that moving forward, but the number of people who filed complaints speaks to the line.

Warnings were indeed given many times, both formally and informally. First, though it wasn't given by any admins, the motion of no confidence was the original "warning," but being an inherently political IC act, it wasn't treated with the level of seriousness it deserved. That was a pretty in-depth look at the start of the behavioral issues. There were many private conversations between forum/Discord admins and private players, all that failed to result in any change. On the Discord side, there was a 48-hour posting ban (called a "timeout") that was applied to everybody involved in the specific argument that occurred at the time, but was issued broadly addressing the long-term problems. That didn't work very long, clearly. Both Tim and Escade were given the opportunity to apologize for their behavior and alter their courses, and in return avoid hard consequences, but they both declined. Escade sent back a long response essentially saying she was justified. Tim feigned ignorance, saying he didn't know what problems we were even talking about. They were originally given 3 days to respond, but ended up getting 5. The ban was issued on the 5th day.

Reply