MTG Salvation

I am leaving MTGS for the foreseeable future.

Quite frankly, the leadership here is a joke. A pitiful, corrupt joke. There are admins and mods who should never have held any position of power, and on sites where I once served as a mod each and every one of those in question (they know who they are) would have lost mod status within a month of becoming a mod.

I was an active member of this community for SIX YEARS without ever having a problem. SIX YEARS. And in the past two months, I have been suspended twice. I'm sure I'm supposed to somehow believe this is all my fault, and nothing at all to do with the recent changes in leadership. Nevermind I can count on one hand how many infractions I got prior to these past two months - it's all my fault, not the leadership.

My first suspension was, according to the PM from admin who issued it, for breaking a rule that results in an instant suspension. After that suspension, I turned that rule around to be used against people who broke it against me. First time I cited this rule, I was told the rule doesn't exist and I was actually suspended for having three active infractions. So someone is lying there - either the admin who issued the infraction and posted my suspension notice in the Banned/Suspended users thread is lying, or a mod is lying because he doesn't want to enforce that rule against someone else.

My second suspension was for having two active infractions. Not three - two. Of course, the mods and admins insist that I had three active infractions. But the only things I could see on my infractions history (which only posts the five more recent infractions and warnings it seems, unless you did through the mess of a User CP this crappy forum software has) was two active infractions (including the one that got me suspended) and a reversed infraction.

I originally had a 10 page or so post typed up in Word to be copied and pasted here, and in it I called out all the scumbags in leadership on this forum. But I decided against posting that message, and only partially because I am sure the mods would have found some way to infract me for the same post a dozen items just to give me a goodbye suspension, and maybe even red text edit most of the post to take out the parts where I bare the truth of the leadership of this forum for all to see (including the prospective Curse purchasers). I have hope that if Curse does buy MTGS, they clean house and kick all the questionable mods and admins out of their positions. If that happens, I may return one day to this site - which was once a great source of knowledge for this game, but has devolved into petty bickering and people asking for budget versions of some $5 rare for their super secret tribal deck they want to play at FNM or a GP.

Some people will be relieved that I am gone - some users, but mostly leadership who will breathe a collective sigh of relief and be happy that this particularly vocal member of the community who was constantly calling out their shortcomings and corruption is gone. Others will realize that losing a member of the community because of the leadership is never a good thing.

Occasionally, I will check the mod lists to see if certain admins and mods are still in power. If I see most or all of the two admins and three mods I believe should never have held positions of leadership gone, I may decide to post again. I have not mentioned any names, but they know who they are. And I'm sure many people who will read this post all know exactly who they are.

It's been almost six years and two months since I made my very first post here on MTGS, and I am now making my last post for the foreseeable future. Maybe this site will become again what it was six years ago, or maybe it will become even more of a joke than it is right now. I don't know, and honestly don't care at this point.

This is Solaran_X signing out for the last time. MTGS is already off the homepage settings for every web browser I use for all my computers. If anyone sees me lurking on this forum again, it's probably because I am deleting my entire six year and two month posting history (aside from locked threads).

This seems like something I can easily live with.

Quote from Danny

It's difficult to read your posts due to the radiant sun glinting off your tin-foil hat, but I'll try my best to respond.

What would the mods actually gain from lying about this? It's always better to leave rules as they are, for both the mods and the members. But the rules were changed because the mods were trying to solve a problem.

A problem only the mods see, and when pressed on it...they claim these PMs that they cannot release were the catalyst.

I'm sorry if you cannot see the suspicious nature of the sudden appearance of these PMs that they cannot release. The duplicity is obvious to pretty much everyone in this thread.

Senori and Teia wanted to change the WCT, a fine subforum when they took leadership, into some kind of feel good politically correct subforum complete with a thought police rule. There was a massive wave of backlash, their moderator help desks exploded, and then the CI forum exploded. Then, all of a sudden...Senori and Teia claim they had all these complaints they were told in private about WCT and that is why they made the changes.

These PMs were never mentioned until the users of WCT rose up against the mods. As far as I am concerned, the PMs DO NOT EXIST. They are a fabrication to give justification to the power grab Senori and Teia tried to pull on WCT. Of course, they could exist. And I have said I will acknowledge their existence if every single PM Senori and Teia got that was a complaint about the WCT is forwarded (not cut and pasted into one message, but every individual message is forwarded) to Meggido so he can confirm that they exist and give us a number of how many users complained.

Quote from jeffbcrandall

How much redaction(sp?) would you feel would be allowable so that Senori et all could post those pms while still making it impossible to track down who sent the pms so as to keep their privacy intact?

And @Senori et all, would you be willing to post actual specific pms so long as you could redact(sp?) enough of the pms so as to make it impossible to track who it was to protect their privacy as requested while still providing some additional proof to quell some of this disbelief that these exist?

Considering the level of trust we have for Senori and Teia, I don't believe any redaction would be acceptable. At this point, I would not put it past them to just type up some false PMs that came from [REDACTED] as proof that the PMs exist. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I will, however, trust Meggido. I would accept Senori and Teia forwarding ALL the PMs to Meggido so he can verify their existence and that they are legit. And I know from personal experience that Senori has no issues forwarding a PM to admins.

I will trust Meggido's word in this, and Meggido only. He has not come to the defense of Senori and Teia, so I believe he is impartial in this (or as impartial as an admin can be when potential staff abuses of power are involved).

Quote from Danny

Solaran_X: Seems like after Senori provided an explanation of why WCT needs to be moderated in a certain way, you realised you were proven wrong, so now you're resorting to implying that these PMs don't exist or are exaggerated. Sorry but you're not the mod, so if these PMs were sent in confidence you won't be able to see them.

I'm sorry Danny, but imaginary PMs that only Senori and Teia know about are not justification for these changes.

Nothing was proven beyond claims that there are these legions of unhappy users that only talk to Senori and Teia. And they will not, or can not because they don't exist, prove it beyond claiming that we should take them at their word because they are mods.

I will be proven wrong as soon as Senori or Teia release the PMs. Until then, I am not proven wrong. And I doubt I will be proven wrong, because I am almost positive that the PMs do not exist. They are a fabrication to justify our dismissal as a "vocal minority" by Senori and Teia, because we are actually a clear majority of people actively posting and Senori and Teia so dearly want to marginalize us.

Quote from Senori

So, Highroller, what you're saying is the rule is actually fine, you just don't like me? That's kinda petty.

He didn't say he didn't LIKE you. He said he didn't TRUST you.

Can't say that I do either, especially after you resorted to threats after being called on the carpet about these complaints only you and Teia know about and refuse to share.

Come to think of it, I've received a lot of complaints about you. But sorry, I can't share them or the names of the people complaining. You see, it was in PMs and I was told in confidence. So you'll just have to take me at my word that a lot of people are complaining about you.

Quote from Belgareth

Guys I know Teia and senori are infuriating and I understand your desires to not post or worse leave the site However that doesn't help the community at large does it.

If azrael doesn't want to be the representative of the community (I believe him best candidate), I volunteer myself to act in this role as I have read all the threads, have had communication with both parties outside of thread and have an indepth knowledge of what can and cannot be done as a potential solution.

My only restriction if the community is happy for me to do this is that I will only deal with Nai or Meggido as they are the 2 people I have seen be receptive to compromise and that I respect to not stone wall the issue.

I would feel best with Meggido doing it. He hasn't come to the defense of the two offending mods in any form yet, so I believe he is most likely to be impartial in this. Nai has been defending Senori and Teia to some degree, so that makes me question his impartiality.

I'm about to the point where Jedi and Drac are. I pretty much don't even want to bother with this site at all anymore, let alone WCT.

Quote from Brandon

Also, why is one side allowed to decide the relevance of data? If I and/or other members of the community believe it's relevant, shouldn't that opinion be considered?

I think it is pretty obvious that this forum has crossed into Animal Farm territory, namely the "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others" part of the novel.

The staff (most of them, not all) on these forums are clearly the pigs from Animal Farm, who believe they are better than the rest of us, are more important, and as such their opinions should carry more weight than the rest of us lowly common animals on the farm.

At this point, I truly believe the mods don't care what the users think. Now that precedent has been set that mods can just claim they were told "in private" about some concerns and cannot share those messages with us because they were told "in confidence," they pretty much can just do whatever they please and claim that they have a lot of people supporting them "in private" and refuse to share them with us because the communications are "in confidence."

Quote from Senori

We have already in so many ways made the rule so much less contentious and so much closer to the status quo and it hasn't given us the slightest bit of thanks here, so the question for me is why bother trying to compromise?

So your idea of "compromise" is to only "slightly" modify a perfectly fine rule from the "status quo?"

The standard forum rules are fine for WCT. No spamming, no flaming, no trolling...that pretty much covers everything relevant. Making other stupid rules like "Don't say something that will possibly offend someone else" is just ridiculous, because someone will be offended by something.

There was absolutely no reason to change the rules or add rules to WCT, aside from you and Teia wanting to flex your brand new moderator muscle, supported by this legion of complaints about WCT that you say you can't talk about because you were told them in confidence. And we all know it is a complete cop out, we called you on it, and what did you do?

You threatened us for it. Very mature and a perfect example of moderator material.

Quote from Teia Rabishu

We've given ground. We've removed and changed rules as a result of concerns raised in this subforum. We've done our absolute best to reach a compromise position. And all we've gotten for it is the same treatment we've been getting from the beginning, as if all our efforts have been for naught.

How are we not working with the users? How are we writing you off? Why have our efforts been all but disregarded?

This is your idea of "giving ground?"

You've still changed the rules in response to some imaginary complaints you and Senori were told "in private" and refuse to share with the rest of us, and you call it "giving ground" when your remove a couple of your new rules and alter some others to be closer to the original rules?

That is not "giving ground." That is you and Senori panicking and doing damage control after you both got called on the carpet for your abuses. Senori resorted to threats, and now you are trying to act like you're the innocent victim in the situation.

But you and Senori can easily quell this.

Prove that there are complaints. Show them to us. Show us that there are more complaints than there are people fighting your changes. Or remove all your otherwise unwarranted changes from the WCT subforum.

Quote from Teia Rabishu

To be honest about it, the overall feeling amongst the WCT staff is that the users are already not trying to work with us.

How about you and Senori try working with the users of WCT instead of writing us off as a "vocal minority" and ignoring us because of some mythical mass of people who are complaining "in private" while neither you nor Senori can prove they even exist because you both are, essentially, claiming "executive privilege" on them. This is no different than me making some outrageous claim about you and Senori, and then refusing to prove it by claiming many people told me about it in confidence.

Based on participation since this ****storm started in both of your moderator help desks and then turned into not one, but three threads in CI...those who support your changes are very few, and those who oppose your changes are legion and come from all across the political spectrum. I mean...you got me, Fahley, and mystery standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Logic and jedi with all of us telling you this is wrong. And there are more than five of us...I'm just naming the five most likely to not be civil with each other who are joined in arms against these changes.

I'm done arguing with the admins. They've basically stuck their heads in the sand and are ignoring the problems that have resulted in this ****storm, while claiming that the mods are doing a fine job and supporting everything the mods do regardless of the uproar from the user community (who are marginalized by claims they are a vocal minority when they are, in fact, a majority of posters involved - there are very few posts supporting these mod and admin actions, and significantly more condemning them, some "vocal minority").

At this point, I have no confidence in the leadership of this site anymore and I sincerely hope the house is cleaned when Curse takes over (if MTGS does get sold). We have one big "Old Boys Club" for the leadership and their friends among the users who can do whatever they want, and then there is everyone else who has to follow the rules to the letter or get carded. I could point to at least a half dozen mods and admins who would have lost their positions on other forums.

Instead, the incompetency and outright corruption of elements of this forum's leadership has driven the better mods and admins out of the system. Not to mention the (intentional?) ambiguity of many of the rules (such as an infraction I got for posting a "large" image when the maximum size of images that could be posted in that thread without spoiler tags was not defined - the rule merely says "use spoiler tags for large images" with no mention of dimensions, and that rule is today worded the exact same) with the whole "rules are enforced at moderator discretion" thing - if a mod likes you, rules don't matter; if the mod doesn't like you, rules matter.

Quote from Nai

I thought I did.

Right now, the three mods are currently working on consensus. If one doesn't agree, it doesn't happen. All three mods will need to say 'yes' for something to occur.

Further, I've been watching over the mods for at least the past week and have been getting reports of any action they've been taking.

If Teia has any say in the consensus in regards to posts where Teia's biases cause a conflict of interests, then there is no impartiality at all.

Can't you see the issues this has caused Nai? You got a wide spectrum of people (from the left wing to the right wing) up in arms about Teia being made a mod in a politically sensitive forum. The mods of the forum are claiming everything is fine, a handful of users are supporting them, and a lot more people are telling them something is wrong in the forum...and those in dissent are being marginalized with claims they are a "vocal minority" (which has been disproven by others in all these threads) and their concerns are ignored.

Quote from Nai

The thing about that? Senori and Frox are not dictated by Teia. Teia can look at a post and say 'this needs to be carded'. But unless Frox and/or Senori agree, it's not going to get carded.

And they have already announced that they would support Teia's recommendations.

After that, there is basically no difference between Teia carding a post in a thread where Teia's biases force a conflict of interests, and Senori or Frox carding the same post. Because of what Senori and Frox said, everyone will just assume that Teia had say in the card, regardless of who cards it.

The damage has been done to moderator credibility in WCT. The only two possible fixes at this point are to either move Teia to another forum where Teia's biases will be irrelevant, or remove Teia from the moderator team.