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Zero Tolerance Approach to Harmful Beliefs and Discrimination

Originally posted by Aguni_
I love how you all immediately tag someone as a heterosexual white male with lots of money living in a first world country who's completely wrong about everything he does or even thinks if they don't agree with you.
And no, of course that wasn't revenge, it was "holding someone accountable....for not agreeing with me"

Not one person told him that his views were invalid because he's heterosexual, white, or male. The reason people disagreed with him was because the things he was saying were (badly) misinformed. You may say that Naro was just "disagreeing" with us, but by that logic the rest of us were only "disagreeing" with him back in return. I don't see any hypocrisy there.

And if you're talking about Ezek by any chance, he was banned because his post was actually a pretty inflammatory and hateful message (before it was edited out, that is).
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Originally posted by Aguni_
I love how you all immediately tag someone as a heterosexual white male with lots of money living in a first world country who's completely wrong about everything he does or even thinks if they don't agree with you.
And no, of course that wasn't revenge, it was "holding someone accountable....for not agreeing with me"
Anyways, f this place, can someone please just delete my shitty hacks and account from this website? It bothers me a lot knowing something i once made, even if it's just a romhack, remains in this website.


Good riddance. I don't need people around who would wish death on me simply for existing. I hope you have a bad day.


[CW: Death wishes and misgendering]









Wishing death to anyone sounds like a compelling ban reason, especially to a staff member. Not even giving a reason could help in that regard. This is not a place for such things. Every life matters.

Aguni, if you don't truly enjoy this website any more, you can leave it. We don't force you, but anyone can take a break from it. You can get away with your username as idol mentioned. That's your choice whether you leave or not. We're a respectful community.
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

Originally posted by Deakula
Good riddance. I don't need people around who would wish death on me simply for existing. I hope you have a bad day.


CW: Death wishes and misgendering





What Aguni has said to you off-site is completely and totally unacceptable, and they will no longer be welcome in this community.

To everyone else reading, these examples are the kinds of things that would get you banned for breaking Rule A3. If you aren't wishing death on others or disparaging trans people, for example, then you are unlikely to run afoul of the rule.

If anyone else is aware of similar situations happening to others, not just from Aguni, but from anyone, then please let the staff know.
I truly, in a heartfelt way, apologize for what you've been through Deakula. You do not deserve such hate in any way, shape, or form.

As for what just happened, all it does is further prove the point of this thread.

-----------

STELLA!


Good riddance tho
No idea what the deal with that Aguni fellow was, going by their past history, they didn't appear to be pleasant in the first place. How convenient that they seemingly came back from hibernation just to be a bigot in this thread. It's a big shame you had to go through with that, Deakula, especially considering it's probably not the first time it's happened.

Now that we've had an example of what could possibly qualify for violating the new rule, I think that should clear up people's concerns over what could possibly get them punished.

I also wanna give big thanks to everyone who contributed to the new rule being put in place, you're legitimely contributing towards a greater cause!
I play forum games and draw furries. I'm mostly active on Discord and Twitter.

It's been pretty disheartening to see prominent members of smwc double down on their support of transphobia over the last few months. It shows how necessary it is that this policy be loud and clear. No, not even a niche forum for enthusiasts of a 30-year-old video game is above criticism for failing to evolve with the rest of us, and the 'drama' and 'division' we're 'suddenly having' is a long-overdue and much-needed reckoning with the kind of nonsense that's been allowed to exist/thrive in this community throughout its entire lifetime. If the result is more people being 'outed' for the reprehensible way they treat others, good. It's about time we take out the trash.

I've spent a lot of time here and in the discord for resources and support, but to be frank, I've never felt comfortable as a community member because of how it's been home to some particular unsavory people and behavior. So, I'm very glad to see this announcement. It obviously doesn't mean that these problems will disappear immediately or entirely, but it's a step in the right direction that shows the staff are taking their users' safety more seriously.
Y'know, I find it weird that a lot of these people think everyone who supports basic human decency is some kind of super radical leftist who is out to kill everyone who isn't an "SJW".

That couldn't be further from the truth.
There are a wide variety of people, with different levels of engagement and understandment of this type of stuff (mine being admitably low), but as I said, we just support basic human rights. And basic human rights aren't "political".

We all have different different opinions, experiences and perspectives about the world as a whole, the fact that we can agree over this little ruleset, shows that it's no big deal that it exists.
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桐生会FOREVER #ThankYouCoco / Rest in peace, Near, thank you for everything
We appreciate all the feedback from you all on this process. As stated by a few users, our moderation stance on this kind of behaviour hasn't really changed since before or after the rule change, we were just looking to formalise our process on this.

We have been listening to the feedback we've received across a multitude of sources. However, when we published this announcement and rule change to the userbase, we didn't quite expect to deal with such rule-breaks as quickly as we did, and thus this brought up a couple of flaws we had not thought of when handling such situations - this lead to us having to make some quick decisions on our processes whilst dealing with these situations. However, whether these rule-breaks had happened five minutes after the announcement, or five months after, it would have been a learning curve for us sooner or later.

We also picked up on an issue in our site banning system, where users who have their account disabled can't be made aware of why unless they check the public ban log, or we have contact details for them. In one of our rule-break instances, we did not have any method to contact a user as to why we disabled their account. Therefore, this is something we're rectifying internally, to ensure we are able to inform users when they do have their account disabled in the future why this has happened.


Clarifying our Definition on "Educating"

We stated in our announcement that "we will do our best as a moderation team to educate these users on why this kind of behaviour could be seen as harmful to others.". By this, when we warn users, we will reinforce Rule A3's Justification. This does not mean we will try to change a user's beliefs, as we do not believe as moderation teams that is our job. However, we will do our best to explain the rules, and justify them.

With that, and updating our internal banning systems to ensure a user is notified when we disable their account and why, we believe this is a solid platform for us to move forward on with enforcing this rule. We completely acknowledge people's beliefs can change, and you can become a better person, so we believe it's important for users to be made aware why what they did was wrong.


Our Process for Dealing With Rule A3 Offences

When a severe violation of Rule A3 happens, we will be following the below process during our investigation. This process applies to both the site forums, and our Discord server. A "severe" violation is where a user is being deliberately hateful towards another marginalised group.

1. We will edit out/delete the offending content.
By removing the content, we are minimising the impact it makes. This way, as few users as possible are caused any upset by the content.

2. The offending user will have their posting privileges revoked until the investigation has reached an outcome.
We want to ensure that the offending user does not have the opportunity to add their content back, or say anything further that could cause upset.

3. We will explain to the offending user why what they did was wrong.
This is our "educating" part of the process. Instead of just stating to the user "this violates Rule A3", we will additionally explain why Rule A3 exists and how it prevents upset to minority groups on SMW Central. This explanation will not go any further than the Justification part of the rule. This will either be issued by a site warning, or a DM on Discord - depending on which is the most suitable method of contact.

4. If a user understands what they did wrong, then we will not take any further action for this offence.
The user will be left with a warning on their record, and if they violate Rule A3 again in the future, this offence will be taken into consideration. If a user is adamant on their position, and such a position would bring a harmful environment to the community, their account will be disabled.



With all this in mind, we have made a tweak to Rule A3's Consequence, where the action we take against a user is now more open for interpretation, based on the circumstance of the rule break. Additionally, it now mentions that while violations are being investigated, users may have their posting privileges revoked.

Originally posted by Rule A3 Consequence Revision
SMW Central has a zero tolerance stance on this kind of behaviour, and each instance will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. While any potential instances are being investigated, the offending user(s) may have their posting privileges revoked until an outcome is reached.


This revision does not change anything for our moderation teams operationally, it just further clarifies our process.


Again, we thank you for your feedback on this, and we hope to continue to make SMW Central a more inclusive, friendly place!
Originally posted by Y.Y.
It's really hard to be banned accidentally.
If you think about what you say before you post it, things will be fine, if you make a mistake, someone will tell you, and you can move on from there and use that as an opportunity to not make the same mistake.

To get banned, especially in a major way, or have your account disabled, you really have to be pushing it. Like ignoring rules, being hostile or whatever. It doesn't happen at random like that.


Yeah, it's always worked like this. The issue with a zero-tolerance policy is whether it continues to be the case whether you "really have to be pushing it." I think this new process is really a good one. Thanks to the mods for clarifying how they will determine if a statement is made "in bad faith" vs. one that comes about because of a language barrier or harmless difference of opinion.
NewPointless
Originally posted by Tahixham
...

Again, we thank you for your feedback on this, and we hope to continue to make SMW Central a more inclusive, friendly place!


i didnt read anything after page 3 but i like the wording on this a lot more than from december. i see no faults and hte ban-notifcation thing seems cool either way (i mean cool in the sense that the moderators show .... empathy? for rule-violators)

Originally posted by Tahixham
We also picked up on an issue in our site banning system, where users who have their account disabled can't be made aware of why unless they check the public ban log, or we have contact details for them. In one of our rule-break instances, we did not have any method to contact a user as to why we disabled their account. Therefore, this is something we're rectifying internally, to ensure we are able to inform users when they do have their account disabled in the future why this has happened.



Quote
With that, and updating our internal banning systems to ensure a user is notified when we disable their account and why, we believe this is a solid platform for us to move forward on with enforcing this rule. We completely acknowledge people's beliefs can change, and you can become a better person, so we believe it's important for users to be made aware why what they did was wrong.


Given SMW Central has an active development team, I'd suggest to make it possible when an account disabled user attempts logging in, instead of showing "Login failed" or "You're banned" (I don't remember what text exactly it shows since I left the team around 2017), actually show a detailed message notifying that their account was disabled and the reasons why.

In the past, administrators used to put the ban reason on the user's title but that is not just a weird way but also makes it entirely public, while my suggestion allows for more private, detailed reason.
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Originally posted by Vitor Vilela
Given SMW Central has an active development team, I'd suggest to make it possible when an account disabled user attempts logging in, instead of showing "Login failed" or "You're banned" (I don't remember what text exactly it shows since I left the team around 2017), actually show a detailed message notifying that their account was disabled and the reasons why.

In the past, administrators used to put the ban reason on the user's title but that is not just a weird way but also makes it entirely public, while my suggestion allows for more private, detailed reason.

Yeah, this is actually something that has come up multiple times in our internal discussions, and we're looking to come up with some sort of solution to that as well as revoking posting privileges while still allowing us to send PMs to infringing users. It's definitely something that we're working on, amidst everything else.
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Does being against activist groups such as BLM who essentially end up reinforcing stereotypes in the minds of some older people who may have otherwise given a chance, or being sceptical of how a pedophile got into the Reddit admin team at all despite their history being on their Wikipedia page... count as a 'harmful belief' in this situation, though?

Don't want to go the way of Twitter/Reddit.
How is that question even the slightest bit related to this thread? To quote the opening post:

Originally posted by Tahixham
we're pushing forward with a zero tolerance policy and approach against expressions of homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, etc.


I think that wording is pretty unmistakable. The policy is to go against homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, etc. Legitimate criticism will not get anyone banned. However, there's clear a difference between legitimate criticism, and hate speech that is just disguised as legitimate criticism. The latter can and should get people banned.
Feel free to visit my website/blog - it's updated rarely, but it looks pretty cool!
Originally posted by Courtney
Does being against activist groups such as BLM who essentially end up reinforcing stereotypes in the minds of some older people who may have otherwise given a chance, or being sceptical of how a pedophile got into the Reddit admin team at all despite their history being on their Wikipedia page... count as a 'harmful belief' in this situation, though?

Don't want to go the way of Twitter/Reddit.

If we find out that a user is engaging in crimes such as pedophilia, their account is disabled on sight regardless of their contributions here. Our rule A9 covers that in addition. We don't ban people for having different beliefs unless such beliefs are potentially harmful, especially towards minorities. That's all there is to it.
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This feels understandable in some ways, but also could be abused as seen over with the likes of Twitter cancel culture which seems to be extremely 'binary-minded', and quite a lot of people here as far as I can see have probably had some experience with that kind of thing in the past whether directly or not.

A friend of mine was called a sexual predator for posting SFW loli art in a Discord server and booted from something they'd been a contributor to for a long time, and essentially betrayed by everyone they knew there... and the way they acted suggests nothing to me that they could ever be pedophilic (they're not an apologist for instance and condemn any form of real abuse). The fact they had things twisted to make them look like some kind of grooming, CP-consuming old man creep rather than what they really were says more about them possibly being insecure about their own tendencies so they felt the need to palm it onto someone else. Or the fact they were mostly minors who didn't understand what they were even saying, just going with cancel culture flow, and then making themselves look like idiots by talking about r18 content as if it's intended for a minor-viewing audience. Guess what, it's not for minors to look at, lol.

I'm also one of those people who feels indifferent about the drama surrounding a certain banned user from many AcmlmBoards (Jamie) that has been ongoing for over half a decade now, at least according to everything he told me.

He outed himself as a pedophile over an incident (involving him apparently sending indecent material to a then-14yo when he was then-17yo. He nor the person who told him, who also happened to be who he sent it to supposedly, didn't even have any solid proof he done it, but he went apeshit at everyone anyway that he spoke to and lost multiple relations that were likely crumbling anyways due to his... failing mental state over old drama and being unable to deal with it) because he'd had enough of an old feud... yet couldn't move on due to how many people had come closer to those directly involved with the feud back then (he's on a 'non-speaking term' with mostly anyone in relation to those), and who would have been more than happy to dish out instructions to backstab him. Basically ever since he's been rather open about the whole thing, and whether it happened or not it was 99% likely a mistake anyways...

I suspect both sides are hiding something - he's probably just so ashamed of any kind of attraction that he'd rather bring himself down to deal with it than pretend it's anything but a problem (which at least shows a level of self-awareness); the other side are literally holding a grudge over things from 4-5 years ago and seemingly did most of the 'attacks' towards him, though only his retaliations were ever seen as 'evil' by anyone...
Don't worry, this site isn't run by minors. Also I've never heard of this Jamie person.
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
Well, all I can say is trust us. We'll come to a conclusion accordingly and with proper evidences.
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