I know they've all been thumped before, but I wasn't sure if they'd been warned, and I didn't want to say they had if they hadn't.
"You fail to grasp the basic principles of mad science. Common sense would be cheating." - NarbonicOh, I had assumed they had been warned, since I remember an incident with another troper long ago, where he complained about them, and the mods said they would warn them. I could be wrong though, my bad, I misspoke.
edited 4th Jul '12 6:22:23 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories!All of them have been warned in lesser ways about bad behaviour. They're been thumped. They've been told to shape up. Most of their warnings have been group warnings rather than individual warnings, but the drama they're involved in has been commented on.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickIt was once, and that was to prevent other people from latching onto her post and it was clarified that the only reason they did so was to prevent people from dragging her into the argument.
Also, can you please turn their PM systems back on so they can appeal for themselves through private messaging the mods?
edited 4th Jul '12 7:34:15 PM by GreyStar
Always be ready to do the unusual and unexpected.Thumps aren't everything. Many times, things that are minor enough in individual posts and not really worthy of a thump can build up over time and become worthy of a ban. Moerin's behavior is one of those cases.
"You fail to grasp the basic principles of mad science. Common sense would be cheating." - Narbonic
This is a bit of a... disturbing precedent, to say that it is entirely possible that a collection of minor things over time, none of which warrant a thump or formal reprimand individually, might add up to a full-scale ban without prior warning. This worries me to think how far along that path I (or any of the people I would call my friends here) would be to being summarily kicked out.
I don't want to sound like a complainer, but I've noticed something that has been bugging me for about a minute or two.
You've stated that this was snowballing for a long time, so if the fact that these guys weren't warned was true, then the question is pretty obvious: How come there was no warning during this snowballing?
I realize that what I am saying is similar to what Dark Confidant is saying, but I felt like I should ask this.
The "don't be a dick" rule guideline has always been there, and likely always will be.
And while I don't know exactly what went on, some of the information that has been provided - such as the bit about the three of them rigging RPs in their favor - sounds pretty dickish, even if it's in line with the other rules.
Toe that line too many times, and the mods will ban away. This is not the first time, and sadly it likely won't be the last.
Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)They have been warned. They've been told to stop a lot of minor things. This is not the first time that repetitively breaking the don't be a dick rule has gotten people banned. It won't be the last one. They have been told to moderate their behaviour numerous times. They might not have a huge thump total, but they have been warned.
They were even warned during the snowballing that individual actions were not acceptable. They might not have taken those warnings as serious and they might have dismissed them because they were always minor, but they still existed.
edited 4th Jul '12 8:37:22 PM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. DickOkay, shrugging off my ridiculous formality to say that yes, they would in fact rig R Ps to be in their favor, but only that they were doing typically That Guy
-ish stuff like having overpowered characters or favoring eachother or being super insular or stuff like that. Manageable behaviors, all things considered. You want to play the head of the thieves guild, Raineh Daze, who is also totally in with the nobles played by Annor? Yeah, that's cool, I'll just play another upstart thief and also a luchador who's out to chokeslam thieves. But maybe this semi-vigilanteism is a little dumb. A ban based on being Those Girls is, in my opinion, admissible if it was as prolific as they were.
edited 4th Jul '12 8:36:41 PM by Taco
I agree with Dark Confident in regards to the matter of precidence. If it had happened to only one of them, then I might not have reacted but to see three people go because of 'Snowballing' of otherwise minor warnings is worrying to me.
As to Taco's rebuttal;
They were hardly super insular, they just knew their niche. They played a certain kind of game that attracted certain kinds of people, usually not my type of game but there was sometimes overlap. People who matched the style of game they wanted to play were welcomed into those kinds of games [which they often were running]. Sometimes there was overlap with my kind, other times not, but I never felt particularly ostracised whenever I tried to cross the divide, provided I matched the intended tone of the game. They didn't go out of their way to make friends with people playing different stuff but I'm guilty of the same.
Further I don't think favouritism is fair. If only on the grounds that, as a DM, I've also instated lieutentants who were otherwise theoretically players. I've also chosen players that I trusted to play a major role in a subplot to shake things up. In an Eva RP, I allowed couple players of mine a significant chunk of background information relevant to the character and allowed them to take up more plot. This is because it's more compelling to have someone suddenly reveal more complex motivations and averts the whole "You're a PC, I'm a PC let's be best friends" since it lets me plant spies and traitors amongst them. Sometimes I'd suggest it to the player or the player would converse with me before hand and lay out the details while adjusting it to the setting and because of this and trust built up to a lot of experience R Ping with eachother, I'd lend that player a lot more leash that and let them have a lot more subplot than I would with some first time poster or even just someone I had less experience with and had to either take at face value or trust second hand accounts of.
I think favouritism is a fair claim if in a Free Form Battle between two theoretically evenly matched characters, you rule consistantly with your friend, not giving a player you trust what would otherwise be a GMPC in order to build up plot. The favouritism you've cited falls squarely into the latter case.
edited 4th Jul '12 10:33:53 PM by Fauxlosophe
I'm not going to disagree with most of what the mods said. I think I should be fair in thinking that they've deliberated carefully.
But, I have to ask one thing to Katrika and shimaspawn. Just what does it mean by "minor"? I understand minor as just that - something that may be a peeve, but nothing that can snowball into an actual misbehavior. If it's significant enough to directly warn the user, then it's not really minor after all.
A user might see a minor instance as that "one instance", and not an accumulated behavioral issue. I think warning needs to clearly distinguish the two.
The big problem here is shock. When a user thinks he/she is getting alone well with a site/community, and it issues an indefinite suspension on the user, it destroys the relationship and trust between them.
I just think this should be avoided.
edited 4th Jul '12 10:28:38 PM by abstractematics
Now using Trivialis handle.I've had P Ms in my box from Eddie that basically amounted to "I can't thump this, but seriously, stop being a douche." I trust that the mods do the same in other cases.
edited 4th Jul '12 10:50:20 PM by Exelixi
Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-It may not have actually come as a shock that Annor, Raineh, and Moerin weren't getting along well with the community, having quit multiple R Ps simultaneously and very nearly wrecking them in the process. Wish I still had the post where Raineh verbatim said 'I quit everything -__-"
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I've never had anything like that happen to me. And since the absence of affirmation is not the same as an affirmation of an absence, it would appear from my personal position that this sort of thing doesn't actually exist.
To clarify: A person who gets a warning knows that he/she needs to shape up or get shipped out, to use the lame expression. A person who doesn't cannot be sure if it's because his/her behavior is acceptable or because no one has informed said person of his/her transgressions.
edited 4th Jul '12 10:54:02 PM by DarkConfidant
It sounds like there was clear tension between them and a lot of the community, with lots of GM intervention. I'd accept that as warning.
It feels like my first time on the outside of an "X was my friend, therefore they deserve leniency" debate. It's rather boring when I don't have a dog in the fight.
Fresh-eyed movie blogIts more like they butted heads one too many times with certain others, TP. As the turn out in protests here can indicate, they were well regarded by many other players. But boy when drama happened, it happened.
They can appeal, and I hope they do so with a favorable outcome.
edited 4th Jul '12 11:11:51 PM by Parable

Kraut: I think what Willbyr meant was that the mods have probably received "hundreds of pages of hollers" over the past year, but the specific "hollers about problems caused by them" were "spread out" sporadically throughout this period - and this is probably a case of under-reporting, since GMs (AFAIK) don't really like to call in the mods on their own RPs.
edited 5th Jul '12 4:13:18 AM by Pyrite
Not a substitute for a formal medical consultation.