Jae Onasi

@Stargirl people were starting to get really angry in that thread and brought up an unrelated complaint that probably should have been sent to me in a PM rather than posted there. I was really concerned about a flame war breaking out—the anger was getting worse rather than better, one post had already been reported to the admin, and I was also concerned that some others were about to jump in to defend me, which would have just ratcheted up the anger more and destroyed what was left of my original intention of that thread—remind all of us that regardless of disagreement, we’re not SWTOR or WoW or GW2 or ESO players, we’re all Remnants.  I moderated threads at Lucasforums for years as well as here, so I know when flame wars are going to get really bad. If I had left the thread open it would have unfortunately turned into something nasty. I didn’t want our friends who are angry right now to say something to each other that they would regret later. So I locked my own thread to prevent it from getting nasty.  Please don’t let others think it’s the EC’s fault! They have taken enough blame and hate already as it is. 

People who leave are welcome back. And if history is any indication, some will come back. Some won’t, and we’ll miss them. But I would rather they were happy in their new guild home than angry here. Plus, we have Discord and other ways of still reaching them to chat. 

Let me ask a question, and this is NOT a commentary on what Squeeks might or might not have done. This is just a hypothetical.  Say your best friend was mistreated by an officer here. And that officer got demoted for mistreating your friend. Would it be fair to your best friend for the EC to ignore him or her and not discipline the officer because a lot of others liked that officer? I don’t think it would be fair or right to allow your friend to suffer. Sometimes even the best, nicest people have had days, mouth off, and have to be accountable for their mistakes. We have to apply our rules equally to everyone. If it’s done unfairly—some people get disciplined while others get off Scot-free—we don’t have true fairness anymore. Even I have gotten a warning when someone thought I was insulting them. It was never my intent to insult, but I understood how the person who filed the complaint got there and how the EC got to that decision to issue a warning. I complained about it, sure, but I didn’t burn the forum down fighting it. I just took my lumps, because I felt that I should live under the same rules as everyone else does. We all signed that we would follow the rules in the CoC when we joined. And those rules apply to everyone from High Elder down to the newest trial.

And I will miss your joyous self, @Stargirl !!

That’s the thing. If this was real life and it was a police officer I would be able to judge whether this is fair or not. Because of our system, which I have had a lot of experience with, doesn’t let you testify on your own behalf, and keeps everything private, I wouldn’t know if my friend was getting treated fairly. 

Let Me ask you something. You have a friend on here who you’ve known for years. Suddenly they are demoted and you don’t know why. You could have faith that the system works but you have, yourself, been given a FOUR year probation for putting a cuss word in the forum chat box. FOUR YEARS. So no, I don’t have faith in the system, because I cannot see what is happening. If I saw the trial, like in real life, then I could judge for myself. But we do everything in private so there’s no accountability. I lost my metaphor somewhere. 

I just got got a mail from I think an EC so I’m probably about to be kicked, but this is my problem. @Zang is gone. I just found out today that while I was running around trying all these other games and also working on RL he had quietly held 2 miniatures of a character I like in gw2. Its one of 3 things he took with him from the guild bank. He’s been sitting, patiently, for me to come home to gw2 and now I never can because of this stupid drama and everyone leaving. 

I would be be mad if the officer who hurt my friend was let off because he was popular, but I would also have to see the mails my friend got about what happened and get frustrated that not more people would know what the heck is going on because we don’t share anything because we are so scared of drama we actually cause 100x more. 

Ok off to the mail bye.

Well, you should still be able to meet with Zang in game--just because he chose to leave the guild doesn't mean you can't ever talk to him again--your friendship is still there whether or not he's a guild member. I've had friends leave guilds for a whole variety of reasons--they didn't want to play the game anymore (couldn't afford it, were burned out on it, and so on). I have a friend who got kicked off of LucasForums for sending a very inappropriate image to someone. I didn't like what he did to that person, so he deserved to be kicked, but I still stayed friends with him. It just meant I had to chat with him on Skype and Facebook (this was before Discord was around). Artie got kicked from the guild for his misbehavior, but I still say hi to him in SWTOR when I see him. 

I get what you're saying about the demotion question, but that's different from what I was talking about. I want rules to be applied equally to all, from the top to the bottom. You're wanting the EC to reveal information on another person's infraction. Those are two very different things. The EC can decline to release information on an infraction and still have been fair in applying the rules. They also can be very transparent about what they did, tell everyone and their brother what they did exactly, and still apply the rules unfairly, refusing to infract their buddies but coming down harshly on people they don't like. Yeah, it would be really dumb for them to do that, but it's still a possibility. Hopefully you can see why I see those as two separate issues.

Consider asking Sayuri or this current group of EC members to take a look at your particular infraction and see if they can explain the length of time to you privately, and perhaps respectfully ask if you can appeal it. They might decline your request, but at least you will have tried. And I know no matter the mistakes you might make, that you have a kind and good heart. 

Hang in there. I know it seems crazy bad now, but it's still not quite as bad as what happened with ESO, and look how well ESO came back. We already have people from all three of the other divisions chipping in to help GW2 rebuild just like what happened in ESO, so I have great faith that the people who decide to stay along with folks who help out will rebuild the division into something even better than before.

Wait if I post an upside down smily will it become a frowny tomorrow?

I'm scared.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAA

thank you jae!!