Spartan's actions around RTR

[Simetrical]

On a different topic - Shaun, your understanding of the RTR situation as presented is greatly flawed. The short of it was that the "leader" was trying to commercialize it (even stole all the money they raised) at TWC's expense.
BTW: the posting of the logs was done under the Hex account by a decision on the Hex. Additionally I was Sibs secret or "shadow" Admin for many months prior to my official public acknowledgment that is something that only a few people know about however. But I digress...

Just to continue with the largely off-topic trend of criticizing current Divi: I had been a member of RTR for quite some time as of your posting of the logs, and for a while after, and know Tyr a damn sight better than you did, and I know of no accusation that at that time he was trying to commercialize anything (although it's hardly impossible given his later actions). Even if he was, that didn't justify your twisted and out-of-context summary of the logs, or the manner of your posting them.

And no, it was not a Hex decision specifically to post the logs, it was a Hex decision to give you (as the only modder on Hex) full authority to deal with the situation as you saw fit. Hex can be faulted for giving you carte blanche to do as you saw fit, but you're still the one who made the bad decision. And it was truly an abominable one, as I outlined in my post (lost from the forums but saved on my hard disk):

With the permission of the staff, I am posting a response to this. I post as an RTR team member, not the RTR team; any other team members may respond as well, by contacting me so I can add their response to this thread. Responses that insult EB or the staff will not be accepted by me, and may not be posted by anyone else, as per Hexagon orders.

Now that I have stated this, let me respond to this accusation.

Should this behavior have been located behind closed doors, as contemptible as it is, we cannot call it harmful to the community. That over the past few months, if not longer (and no doubt we could say it has, were the logs available), it has been consistently displayed in a public forum is extremely harmful to the close community we have spent years building, and cannot be allowed to continue especially given the eminent release of the EB team's project in the very near future.

I agree, again, that these discussions should not have been conducted in public. But I don't think that the appropriate response to this infraction is to post them for thousands more to see. Within the chat room, at least, only ten to twenty people ever read the remarks, and therefore the community was not as seriously harmed as it could have been. The RTR forum is the largest one on the board, and there could be no better way to spread ill will than by posting divisive material for everyone on TWC to see. I question, then, the Council's decision to publicly post this, where it will cause so much strife and dissension that could have been so easily avoided. I ask, too, why the staff blamed the mod rather than the individuals, and why they made no effort to consult with the infractors before posting their sins for all to see.

I ask the Council this, as is my right. According to the Syntagma, "Civitates . . . can call into questions any decision by any of the aforementioned officials". Nowhere does the Syntagma say that the officials must answer the questions; that is left to their discretion. But I should think it would be only fair and only prudent to answer such questions as these.

We understand that certain members of the EB team were made aware that something like this was going on, and tried to peacefully ask that such behavior did not persist. Those EB members were unaware of the strength and frequency of these events, nor that they have continued after the communication was made and further escalated.

I made it quite clear to Khelvan in private conversation that both nowonmai (Tyr`) and we51ey2 (Wes) outright hated EB, and that they routinely badmouthed EB. I provided some examples, as well. He, at least, shouldn't have been surprised. We didn't make it well known within EB, of course, because neither of us wanted to provoke the response that the Hexagon Council has here provoked.

These excerpts clearly show a systematic plan to plagiarize the work of others. While clearly some of these excerpts were meant as jokes, a few taken out of context (as we have learned looking at the full logs), most are not.

I ask you to provide evidence that the "most" you refer to were not, in fact jokes. I ask that you either do that, or retract your statement, which constitutes a very serious accusation indeed. There was no systematic plan, and there was no plagiarism.

At the very least, the Europa Barbarorum team specifically, and the community as a whole, should receive a full and sincere apology for what has happened in the past, and assurances that nothing like this will ever happen again.

I will never apologize for anything posted here. Why? Because never, not for a single second, did I ever have anything to do with it (to my recollection). Every step along the way, I tried to make the offenders see reason about EB, or at least see reason about cursing it out in a public channel. Never did I endorse stealing anything from EB (except ideas, if you call that stealing; I don't). The RTR team has not done anything wrong. Certain members of the RTR team have done wrong. Nobody should lose sight of that fact.

I am not a great fan of certain of EB's policies, namely its closed-doors policy. Nevertheless, I have refrained from slandering it or childishly badmouthing it for as long as I can remember. Even in private, I have normally remained restrained, and I have tried to keep any insults confined to areas where I actually find fault with EB, rather than insulting it generally. In public, I have not spoken against EB in the slightest since early March, when I began a long discussion with Khelvan about EB vs. RTR (this is the discussion he alluded to earlier, although that has been removed from the board). I firmly believe that this is what's good for the community.

If this behavior doesn't cease immediately we will be taking swift and lasting action against any member(s) who fail to adhere to the community standards and the TWC forum rules.

I fully intend to bring the matter to a vote of the civitates if you consider taking any action against anyone for these things. The infringements were not on the TWC boards, and it therefore seems to me unreasonable to hold them against him here. On that score, we will see.

<bouis> "Italian Infantry"
<bouis> and "Italian Spearmen"
<Jabuka> lol, microsoft introduced a voice-"program" called Sam. did you heared him yet? There is a directx interface and you can develop it further for your need i think
<bouis> but you konw, in, uh, latin?
<Shigawire> g33kvence Im afraid not
<bouis> I could use that for roma mod
<g33kvence> oki
<Shigawire> bouis, hmm ok maybe tomorrow
<Simetrical> We'll do fine with the EB unit names, I expect, bouis.

The full quote makes this slightly clearer:

[15:09:37] <bouis> hey
[15:09:40] <g33kvence> Shigawire
[15:09:47] <Shigawire> hey g33
[15:09:50] <bouis> shigawire, wanna do one real quick to say something like
[15:09:51] <g33kvence> did you remove "TEH DEY IZ HOOOURSSSS!!!11"
[15:09:55] <bouis> "Italian Infantry"
[15:09:59] <bouis> and "Italian Spearmen"
[15:10:01] <Jabuka> lol, microsoft introduced a voice-"program" called Sam. did you heared him yet? There is a directx interface and you can develop it further for your need i think
[15:10:04] <bouis> but you konw, in, uh, latin?
[15:10:05] <Shigawire> g33kvence Im afraid not
[15:10:10] <bouis> I could use that for roma mod
[15:10:13] <g33kvence> oki
[15:10:23] <Simetrical> We'll do fine with the EB unit names, I expect, bouis.
[15:10:24] <Shigawire> bouis, hmm ok maybe tomorrow
[15:10:25] <Jabuka> if you have XP, Sam is there
[15:10:33] <bouis> heh
[15:10:35] <Simetrical> Oh, or not.
To elaborate further, Shigawire said he'd include EB unit names only in his voice mod, not having enough time to do RTR names as well. Therefore, we'll doubtless be using EB names for the voices, at least. We will not be using EB unit lists generally, as the abbreviated version strongly implied.

<Tyr`> its been a struggle to keep the site running
<Tyr`> people love the preview
<Tyr`> i guess
<g33kvence> hehe
<g33kvence> more then the eb previews I think
<g33kvence> the eb previews suck dick

As posted, this quote gives the impression that g33kvence has something against EB. This is eminently not the case, as the remainder of the log beginning May 2, 14:26:53 EST clearly shows:

[May 2, 14:26:53] <Simetrical> A little discretion, please.
[May 2, 14:26:57] <Simetrical> This is a public channel.
[May 2, 14:27:17] <g33kvence> so what?
[May 2, 14:27:25] <g33kvence> noone's forced to be here
[May 2, 14:27:32] <Simetrical> Yes, but it makes us look bad.
[May 2, 14:27:39] <g33kvence> meh
[May 2, 14:27:44] <Simetrical> Anyway, I thought you liked EB.
[May 2, 14:27:49] <g33kvence> I do
[May 2, 14:27:51] <g33kvence> but
[May 2, 14:28:01] <g33kvence> I'm not happy with the screens, they suck

As you can see, the complete transcript shows that g33k (a team member, s3quence on the forums) was disapproving of the screenshots only, not EB in general, and was in fact nothing more than a disappointed fan.

The rest of the logs are essentially accurate representations of what has transpired in the RTR chat room. If you look them over, however, you'll see that the list of culprits essentially consists of Tyr`, Wes, and bouis, plus driddle now and again. The majority of RTR members do not generally slur EB, and to say otherwise―as the Hexagon Council has in its above post―is inaccurate and unfair.

That is all I have to say for us.

-Simetrical

You slandered the entire team save three or four members, stuck and locked the thread, and banned them from responding. This, the largest and most popular mod for RTW, in control of the largest single forum on TWC. All while you were a member of EB, of course. And the consequence was to lose probably hundreds of active members to the RTR board, which grew at its peak to not much smaller than TWC. It could be reasonably called the most damaging decision made in TWC's history, although by now the damage is gone, with RTR's forum dead, RTR itself semi-dead and with its forums hosted at TWC.

It was a terrible decision and it was completely your fault. So were most of your decisions during the hacker attack, although I grant that Crandar's return may have been above your head, if I understand correctly, and you can't be held fully accountable for what he did. You nevertheless bungled every major decision you made in the worst way possible. It is my considered opinion that you are the least worthy administrator in the history of the site to possibly hold the title of Divus save for Richard the Lionheart.

But, of course, the question at hand is Archer. I just couldn't let your defense stand, spreading as it did falsehoods about Tyr (who was, granted, a scumbag) to justify your unilateral and ill-advised actions, and claiming Hexagon agreed with them. Anyway, it's good to have that counterclaim posted to the original anti-RTR announcement, even if the original was lost.

[Spartan]

[Way off topic]
I'm fine with your opinion as I told you before. As to my decision to reveal publicly what TYR plans were after I had tried to enlighten some RTR members was was basically informed I was something akin to be jealous -etc... So truth does the soul good yes? That is why they were posted. As to the crazy idea I had personal issues with RTR that is patently untrue. I worked on RTR with GJ and tried to support it as much as possible as I did with all projects. My intent was not to slander the entire team but to let them as well as the rest of the modding community know what was going on in the "inner circle" nothing more nothing less. If people think that was wrong then so be it . Do I regret it not a chance in hell.

BTW: I locked the thread because most of the reply that were being posted where personal attacks on me and the TWC staff as well as EB and not related to the issue at hand. As I stated then if you want to attack someone one then please target me I could care less but dont **** with the admin team or the other projects. I have zero tolerance for that kind on banter.

Additionally right after it all happened what did this power hungry, jealous and cruel admin do? I appointed to more then half my staff people people like you who where adamantly against my leadership just to show I had no hidden addenda or axes to grind -etc... [/off topic]

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

Sim/Spartan - do you want me to split this out so you can continue?

[Simetrical]

[Way off topic]
I'm fine with your opinion as I told you before. As to my decision to reveal publicly what TYR plans were after I had tried to enlighten some RTR members was was basically informed I was something akin to be jealous -etc... So truth does the soul good yes? That is why they were posted.

It did nothing to reform those members of RTR who were insulting EB (except Wes, who was just playing along and would have stopped if he was privately asked to). It certainly did nothing to help the site, when RTR split from it. What did it do except upset a lot of people, and give a very few a sense of vindication?

As to the crazy idea I had personal issues with RTR that is patently untrue. I worked on RTR with GJ and tried to support it as much as possible as I did with all projects.

Have you heard the phrase, "appearance of bias"? No one who was an EB member should have done anything relating to this, any more than I as an RTR member should have acted as an Urbanis Legio in relation to it. I very scrupulously did not use my moderating powers a single time in the entire ordeal, except when explicitly permitted to (and I think also unbanning one person who had been banned clearly as a simple mistake). You, on the other hand, felt it completely proper to personally handle the whole issue. Funnily enough, more than one Hex member who wasn't involved thought you acted wrongly, unbiased though you apparently were.

My intent was not to slander the entire team but to let them as well as the rest of the modding community know what was going on in the "inner circle" nothing more nothing less.

Your post said nothing about the "inner circle". It consisted solely of quotes from the public IRC channel that every team member was aware of. You were certainly informing us of nothing. As for the modding community, it's a funny view to me indeed that informing people of something that is not affecting them is worth any amount of chaos and damage to the site, with no other benefit.

BTW: I locked the thread because most of the reply that were being posted where personal attacks on me and the TWC staff as well as EB and not related to the issue at hand.

Well, perhaps they thought that being baselessly accused of plagiarism was a personal attack too, huh. How silly of them to get worked up about being called thieves and scoundrels by the site's administration. It's also possible, you know, to edit out attacks without deleting the whole post. That would have left some kind of defense without violating the site's rules. But I suppose it didn't occur to you.

Additionally right after it all happened what did this power hungry, jealous and cruel admin do? I appointed to more then half my staff people people like you who where adamantly against my leadership just to show I had no hidden addenda or axes to grind -etc... [/off topic]

Hmm, I don't recall that part. Perhaps you can refresh my memory. Who was it who was so adamantly against your leadership that you appointed? Carousel, your client of a few weeks previous? smack? I'm afraid I can't remember. I do remember your demoting and banning those such as GEN, Boris, and Manji, at a time when they certainly qualified as being adamantly against your leadership. It's the other way that I don't remember any, I'm afraid.

Sim/Spartan - do you want me to split this out so you can continue?

Conventionally that's left to the Curator/Speaker. But thank you for asking. Of course, I wouldn't do it myself . . . after all, I'm personally involved.

[Spartan]

This is not the the time nor place for this debate (yet again) so I'll just stop posting on it. You can believe what you want no matter what I say will change that so i wont even bother as it is a waste of energy. Suffice it to say what was posted was by TYR there was no plagiarism in it pure and simple. Additionally you and tBP as well as three others whom I cant recall right now were on staff and all where actively "working against me". Moreover I did not ban GEN Botis or Manji that was Crander if memory serves. In fact I believe i have a good relationship with GEN and Manji as well as Boris. Shoot last time I was active Boris and I were going to work on a project together.

@Tac - please feel free to remove this posts as they detract from the intent of the thread. I just got tired of seeing my name used a fodder and had to respond.

[Simetrical]

You explicitly encouraged, in fact ordered, the banning of any Civitates who made a fuss. You asked any staff who disagreed to resign. My apologies if it was not your actual hand that clicked the mouse button; those logs are lost and I can't confirm or disconfirm who did what outside of posts.

I agree that this conversation is best brought to an end. I would not like to lose my temper.

[Tacticalwithdrawal]

Sim/Spartan,

ok, I've split this out (after discussions with the appropriate Curia authorities).

As you have both said you want to finish it I have also closed the thread otherwise others will just dive in and reignite it. I hope that's ok, as ever, please feel free to PM me if you want it reopened.