[2021] An update on the Moderator Team in regards to recent events

I'll try to reply to as many people as I can before I go to sleep, but I wanna make a quick statement here.

I know how this may seem from the outside, but we did what we thought is fair based on all evidence we have. What sleek provided was her part of the story, but there are a lot of factors that went into this decision. In total, we spent about 5+ hours today talking about it without Triple or Sleek. We spent a lot of our time trying to reach a solution that is fair.

Now I'll say my personal opinions. Sleek was a good mod. BUT, so is Triple. Triple screwed up, big time, by removing Sleek. His punishment was that he no longer has an option to do so, at all. He is at the bottom of the mod list, which means he can only kick SmiteRobot if he wanted to. However, he does care about the community. He is the first one to organise community events around the sub when needed.

Sleek, on the other hand, is also a really good mod. However, what lead us to this decision was the fact on how she handled this situation. We are glad she raised the issue of her unmodding, but releasing private information about Triple was not a right thing to do.

I am willing to talk and respond to every single comment who has a questions because we truly do have good intentions. We want this subreddit to grow and feel welcoming for everyone. I really wanna be as transparent as possible so you can ask me anything about the process and you'll get a honest answer.

It's really more than that. Triple was demoted significantly, and is being reevaluated for his actions. However, him "acting like a creep" is not a valid point to make. Their relationship was at all times consensual so we cannot accept that as a point.

As for Sleek, we aren't "taking her back" because she exposed him. The way she went about it was wrong, and lead to him getting threats.

Personally, I really don't agree with this. While on the mod team, Sleek was having issues with being harrased, and she was given special permissions by Triple so she could avoid that harrasement. However, she is now the one to direct harrasement back to him which honestly isn't quite fair. Constructive criticism is welcome and needed, but witchhunting is wrong.

He did abuse his power and ignored our opinions, that's true. And we were all incredibly mad when we found out. Therefore his punishment was to no longer have that tool available to him. But its really hard to miss how much work the guy does. He is the first one to organise stuff for the community when the need arises and he really cares about it. He knows when he's in the wrong and is rude to someone, and is something that he takes criticism for and tries to improve himself on. That's why he's still in the mod team.

On the other hand, Sleek went the wrong way about this. She should've criticised Triple for what he did, and not bring up unrelated, completely consensual interactions between those two. There's extra stuff behind the scenes but I wish not to comment on them in the current time.

We really do try our best and we thought about this for soooo long. We really try to be as fair as possible.

Hey Savvy, I'll be happy to reply to any problems you might have with our decision. I know Triple has done you wrong in the past, however I'd encourage you to ask publically (or privately, whatever you prefer) on what your issues are with our decision so I can try to explain our viewpoint.

I understand the place you're coming from. This decision was not made lightly, and definitely not to "shut people up", as it's a very controversial one, and we knew that. We discussed this for more than 5 hours today and came to what we think is a fair solution. If you have any questions about the decision process, feel free to ask.

If you ask me, after seeing how certain parties behaved upon our decision, I feel it was the right one.

Triple's punishment was to lose his executive status. He now has no power to kick anyone, literally. However, he does care about the community greatly and strives to improve it as he knows how, which is why we kept him.

Sleek, while originally a victim of Triple's impulse decision to kick her, didn't act as we'd want a moderator to act. I do not wish to badmouth anyone, as I feel like everyone's trying their best at all times, but there was a plethora of better ways to handle the situation, unrelated to Triple.

Look snuffle, I don't know what to say to you. I know nothing I say can change your mind but we are really trying to be fair and bring an objective decision. Triple does so much behind the scenes for the community, and losing him would lose a lot of spirit. I know it's hard to believe that as he comes off as prick often, but he really cares.

The post stayed up because we didn't want to make it out for her to be censored. Do know that before posting, she consulted with some people on the mod team and it was explained to her that her post is valid, but witchunting people personally isn't okay and would likely lead to the events we are in now. She knew what the consequences of a public attack on a person would be, and decided to go with it, which is also partly why we kept up. If she was so determined, she had a right for her post to stay up.

Trust me, this decision was made without him. He gave us complete control to decide what outcome we make, and we thought this was the best way.

1) I know you think that, but Triple really pulls a lot of stuff behind the scenes. I am willing to provide plenty of documentation of him asking for certain events and really pulling the subreddit places. Most of that goes unnoticed, but it does happen, and if you request, I'll publish short snippets of it, without compromising anyone's integrity.

2) Agreed, it is our responsibility to correct the wrong. However, her post broke multiple rules we had and she was personally warned by a mod that was in touch with her that it was not a nice post. It wasn't a mod warning but a warning from a person who wanted to help her. She proceeded to go with the post, which we respected and kept it up, but the consequence is that we cannot allow her the mod position back.

And since you guys condemned leaking mod talks, if you provide any proof, you are hypocrites.

I disagree. We were attacked by leaking our private chats and if that's the course of action people want to take I can see with other mods to release them fully, without any screenshots. There were plenty of mistakes made on both Triples and Sleek's part.

But he is still within the range of power to abuse it over the users of this subreddit.

All other mods now have the power to overrule his decisions, and if he does turn out to be a problem, he can easily be removed.

Then why did you say that there were "number of past events, which do not need to be made public"? If you came to this decision just now, what happened to all the past events?

This really isn't a gotcha. The post was what made us rething the decision, but I will say there is plenty of stuff in the background. Again, if requested, I'll see with other mods for modchat logs.

It was ABSOLUTELY the right thing to do. When you make a case against someone, you present all the evidence you have. Which is exactly what she did.

I honestly don't believe it's right to leak someone's name and sexual interests and frame them as bad, when they were completely consensual at the time.

I feel like I need to emphasize again that none of us agreed with Triple's decision to remove Sleek. Every single member of the team spoke out against his decision in mod chat and we did not only "make one quick comment and move on". The conversation about the topic lasted hours and the topic would not simply have been dropped soon after. The whole team was on Sleek's side and given some time we would have been able to come to a solution in a civil discussion.

It is very unlikely that Triple would still be head mod even if she hadn't made her post. Everyone on the team agreed that some sort of action had to be taken. The way Reddit works, that is something that can't be done "on the spot" but takes some time, because, technically speaking (by the rules of Reddit), Triple would have been well within his rights to remove all of us and run the sub alone or with a new hand-picked team. That meant that we had to discuss amongst ourselves and come to a reasonable conclusion.

The statement that he had abused his power and undermined our authority to make executive decisions alone on multiple occasions is not correct. This is the first time in my 3+ years on the subreddit mod team that Triple has done something like this and the consequence was him losing the position of top mod which he had held for 4 years. While this one mistake damaged the team's trust in his leading capabilities to a point where we did not feel comfortable with him in this position anymore, it does not outweigh the amount of care, time and effort he has put into this community over the years and does not warrant an immediate and complete removal from the team in our opinion.

As we said in the post and multiple other replies, the decision to not invite SleekVulpine back was not based on the fact that she spoke out against Triple, all of us did that, but the way in which she chose to address this issue certainly contributed.

His abuse of power was reprimanded, but was not that great to begin with. He should've asked us, but hasn't. That's why he now can't do it without asking.

I'm sorry, but I'll personally disagree. She and Triple had a toxic relationship, and she was the one being toxic in many many many occasions in modchat, just as he was. It is not fair to completely remove one side from any guilt just because they provided all evidence in their favour.

Edited because she wasn't an abuser and I was too harsh on my words. They were both toxic, but none of them were straight up abusive. I apologise as that wasn't my goal.

She should have just continued handling it internally where none of you did anything

We were all shocked and unsatisfied with the situation, and it was discussed from day to day. Furthermore, she talked with mods privately before publishing her posts, and was told that she was in the wrong to accuse Triple of his character. She decided she felt that way and was allowed to post it, but as someone who sees a lot behind the scenes, it was disgusting both ways.

We are not talking about sexual harrasement. Their conversations were completely consensual, and framing them as otherwise is wrong.

I'm too tired to talk about other points, but just wanna mention that the reason why we replied the same is because I didn't understand what Nim told me in a private chat.

If his abuse of power was worse, he'd be removed, yes. This was the first time ever he did anything major without asking the team first and has since recognised its severity.

If firing someone from the mod team because they wouldn’t give him free nudes

What? She was removed due to a completely unrelated issue, and she never claimed it was because she give him nudes

Look, we all get it. We expected this kind of response, but I can do nothing but assure you the decision is fair. You don't have to believe me and I don't blame you, but there is a reason why the majority of the moderators voted for this outcome.

It honestly seems like you kept him because you're all friends with him

I don't know triple and new mods are chosen by all old mods together.

I really don't know either sleek or triple at all, but I've seen the situation unfold myself, and I don't care about mob mentality or the dreaded downvotes if it means fighting for what's right.

After another 3+ hour session today, our decision is final for the time being.