Mystic removal discussion - The good and the bad

Since Mystic's misdeeds has been pretty clearly laid out, I'm curious about Rob and Prime's involvement. In this particular incident I know Rob failed to stop Mystic's bullshit, and I know little about what Prime did. But people seem generally happy about all three of them being gone, not just Mystic.

Besides just general compliance with what seemed to be an oppressive environment, what have they done to negatively impact the community and devlopment? Unlike Rob and even Mystic, Prime has been since been permabanned, so his trangressions were evidently worse.
 
Prime has been since been permabanned, so his trangressions were evidently worse.

Oh boy

Were they ever! Maybe not worse ethically, but more volatile. (READ: he threatened to destroy the Official Server) Although I don't think a ban for the others would be out of order (it was mostly just overlooked since they left voluntarily) Prime received a ban for a string of horrendous behavior during this entire set of proceedings.

We made an announcement on it in discord, so I'll copy what was said here:
__________________

Just for transparency's sake:

Prime has been banned for quite a few reasons piled up, including:

- Creating problems & obstinance to policy change in moderation because of personal issues
(Also for transparency, detention cube has been removed because it was embarrassing, and a greater focus was put on holding each other accountable after the incidents of the past few months)

- Threatening to split the community
(Kind way of saying he threatened to delete the entire OS)

- Personal threats against other staff members

- Attempts to force his way into personal spaces of several community members

The final incident involved him stirring the pot with uninvolved community members following his removal from dev."
__________________

There was also an imgur gallery with some examples of this posted, so I'll put the images in here too.

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I had the... um, "pleasure" of getting to look over most of this after I got made a moderator, and it was pretty bad. Most of them were threats made at Wolfy, because after he got given admin status... well, I'll give a quick tl;dr.

Immediately after the debacle with the pedophilia accusations and the giant embarrassment that that was, Rob stepped down and gave server ownership to Wolfy. The only other candidates were MascaraSnake, but he didn't want it, and Rob didn't trust Prime with it.

Wolfy, taking charge as a new admin, decided to implement some new rules and guidelines for moderation. In short, they included stuff like the removal of the "detention cube" moderation system, replacing it with a simple bot that sends a ban appeal form. A lot more efficient, and a lot less patronizing than the...cubes.

They also had a focus on accountability for EVERYONE and not just letting people get away with blatant flaming and inappropriate behavior because they're friends (*cough mystic cough*). If you've read the extent of this thread, I'm sure you can see how much of a problem this has been in the community for YEARS.

And then other miscellaneous notes included stuff about moderating behavior that actually needs it (nsfw content, trolling, art theft), as opposed to the obsession with grammar and nitpicking people for whom English is not their first language.

It was all pretty respectable, responsible stuff.

As Wolfy was in the process of copypasting the guidelines in Prime responded with "I reject." which sort of tells a lot about how obstinate he was being.

Prime, Rob, and MascaraSnake objected on the grounds that Wolfy was supposedly 'forcing the rules down their throats' -- but it's worth noting that the administrator making changes without consulting everyone had always been the precedent for the server. Wolfy was like, alright, sure, we can discuss it more, but they IMMEDIATELY demanded him to step down and relinquish his administrator role for this perceived trespass. It was his rejection of that request that prompted them to start threatening to "burn it all down." What followed was this:

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As I see it, they wanted to continue the status quo, and they thought Wolfy would be really easy to control. In truth, Wolfy wasn't going to play puppet, and was going to actually solve the problems. I guess they didn't like that, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's come this far in this thread. When they realized they had fucked up they started freaking out (and calling it a kartkrew takeover WTF) and this is what it looked like.

But yeah... I think that gets the point across. It was a pretty nasty mess.

Something that tickles ME after the fact is becoming a mod and reading backlog and seeing how much Prime was lying to me when I had came to him with concerns in the past. He had talked a big game about "following procedure" but this supposed "procedure" was nonexistent! Not in the pins, no references in the topics, nothing even Wolfy could find. Most of the mods they had brought on did nothing because they didn't even know what was expected of them.

Guess who ACTUALLY wrote policy as of present? We did!

I was a little hesitant to post this unless someone asked, because I'm eager for the community to get it out of its system and move on, but as long as people still have questions, there's no problem with being transparent.
 
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Holy crap, sounds like eveyone was really volatile. Something Prime said when this was all going with Mystic and Rob was that this was stress making decent people do stupid things. I wonder to what extent that was true. How much was it stubbotn people wanting to stay in power and how much was it really just emotions coming to a boiling point

The part about "This isn't about the rules, decide what we are to you", like was that brought about because they'd no longer get special treatment or what?
 
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Holy crap, sounds like eveyone was really volatile. Something Prime said when this was all going with Mystic and Rob was that this was stress making decent people do stupid things. I wonder to what extent that was true. How much was it stubbotn people wanting to stay in power and how much was it really just emotions coming to a boiling point

The part about "This isn't about the rules, decide what we are to you", like was that brought about because they'd no longer get special treatment or what?
Oh, all this was ABSOLUTELY downplayed as them just being poorly affected by stress. Some nonsense along the lines of "these people were just bad at handling stress, it's better if this server is run by people who are good at handling stress", when in reality there are numerous instances of those members of the old guard being stuck up and aggressive. Especially Prime with his whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of thing (or at least it comes off like that to me).
 
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If you let stress affect your actions, you're gonna be a crappy admin/moderator anyway. Now, I can't say that I would have acted perfectly if I were in their shoes, but I would have at least apologized for being an idiot instead of making excuses for it. So at the time I saw this argument of "I only did stupid things because I was stressed" as them unintentionally making the case for themselves to leave.

And that's without even knowing about 95% of their garbage behavior.
 
By the time they said that in the public announcement, it was already in the context of being the reason for their departure. I don't know if they made an attempt to stay before that point, or if it was just an attempt at damage control.
 
By the time they said that in the public announcement, it was already in the context of being the reason for their departure. I don't know if they made an attempt to stay before that point, or if it was just an attempt at damage control.

For me it seems the later one is the case.
 
I didn't play Sonic at all as a kid and only recently became interested in the franchise, so I had no idea what SRB2 even was until the 2.2 announcement trailer last year. I've been into it, so I found my way to the homepage to download the soundtrack and fell down the rabbit hole into this thread somehow and I just spent the last couple hours reading all 22 pages. Even for a total outsider, that was a lot to process so I want to share my thoughts (I apologize in advance if they're not too helpful).

At first, I thought this Mystic guy seemed a little out there but fairly harmless. Like yeah, he said some bad things but I feel like that can be easily reconciled. But then I saw him both talking so openly about lolicon and establishing 18+ areas in spaces where kids are allowed, and how pleased he was with himself for breaking their spirits until they were lower than him. Top that with his piss poor attitude as a leader, among everything else.

I honestly don't mean any disrespect, but why in the hell isn't he banned from the forums? I get there isn't any concern of him coming back, but it's a symbolic gesture. As it stands, it seems like he's still getting preferential treatment. I know I'm just a visitor, so I'm not trying to overstep my bounds and make demands. It just looks really bad from an outsider's perspective.

With that being said, let's get to the positive.

I used to be a real jerk when I was a teenager too, so I understand how difficult it is to cope with the realization that you've deflected your own hurt onto others. Some of these posts were really sad to me, seeing you guys talk about specific people you ganged up on and then seeing those same people share their perspective. It broke my heart. But I think it's really important that you guys are able to have that discussion and you're able to vent an entire decade's worth of baggage. It has to be a relief.

All of your posts were honestly very powerful (even the people that got some flack). I'm glad I got to learn a little bit about everyone behind the project and I feel privileged to have been able to see such a personal side of yourselves. I doubt it was easy sharing all of that. But it's important and I'm glad that you did.

From the sounds of things, you guys are finally free to create and I'm really stoked to see what you'll come up with. Best of luck. :)
 
I still don't really know the full story of what he did here and on the Discord, but I don't think banning him "as a symbolic gesture" would be the right way to handle it. I'm generally of the mindset that if action is taken against someone on a website, it should be for something they did on the website. The Discord is not the forums, the forums are not the Discord, what happens on one shouldn't be punishable on the other. The exception to this would be outright threatening to do something like destroy the entire forum in a Discord post or something, in which cases there would be overlap.
 
His account was not banned from the MB, my guess being in case he does want to formally apologize for all that, down the line... though, probably isn't gonna. He left on his own accord and was taken his administrative permissions away, but this thread is always open for him. Of the "old guard", it was the banning of Prime, detailed just several posts above, that appears fairly justified for his case. I feel like I'm hitting matters that were already hit as repetitively as a heavily-cratered planet bombarded by asteroids, but it is interesting to see a recent-newcomer perspective like yours about this topic, Sunderland.
 
Back when I worked with Prime in late June/early July, he had told me that Mystic purposely locked himself out of his own mb account, so that even if he wanted to log back on, he couldn't.
 
Wasn't a good chunk of it on the forums though? Making the private 18+ area is more than enough, I think. It's retroactive, but it's not like anyone could've enforced it back then even though they tried to. But if he really did lock himself out of his account, then it's better than nothing. Again, not to dictate anything since I have no say in any of it, but it's something I wish could've happened in other communities I've been a part of that's had similar (but not nearly as bad) problems stemming from specific people.

Sorry for drudging things up again, I didn't mean to beat a dead horse or to reopen old wounds. Especially since it seems like it was mostly settled a couple of months ago. I just wanted to show my support as one of the people reading the thread as a recap and that question was something that was really bothering me.

I'll leave it be for now. I hope everyone's doing well.
 
You're good, the whole point was for people to get their feelings out, and even if people are a little late to the party, that's kind of how the SRB2 community works. Like, I expect we'll still have people filtering back in here over the next year or two being, like, "Wait, what happened, how did things change so much?" and wanting to give their perspective. And that's okay, that's what the thread is here for.

what happens on one shouldn't be punishable on the other

This is a very legalistic mindset I see people put forth a lot, but it's not actually practical or effective. From the forums to the discord to the master server and back, this community is made of the same members through and through, and in most cases the same moderators, too. If we want to actually maintain the peace and make sure problem users are dealt with, it makes sense to extend their ban as far as we need to do our job. Sure, some obnoxious spamming on the discord isn't gonna get you banned from the forum, but if you're bullying people or being a creep, that's a problem that's gonna persist everywhere.

Also, we aren't actually obligated to put up with bad behavior and give someone a second chance in one facet of the community just because they did it in another part. (No one is owed our time or energy, we're not social workers) I don't mean this aggressively, though! Unless someone is clearly acting in bad faith, most of the time we're more than willing to give second or third or even fourth chances.

It just looks really bad from an outsider's perspective.

Actually, you're totally right, I'm gonna correct this just so the precedent is clear and there's no confusion. :V
 
Back when I worked with Prime in late June/early July, he had told me that Mystic purposely locked himself out of his own mb account, so that even if he wanted to log back on, he couldn't.

Eh? How could he do that? Even if he chose a random password that he'd never be able to guess, he can just get that password reset and sent to his email, and it would barely slow him down. If he made a new email, gave that email account a random password, and changed his email on the MB to that one, then changed his MB password just to keep himself from coming back, that's like a new level of petty. Just exercise some self-control, dude. lol
 
Hello again! just stopping by...

During Mystic's removal about his past abuse, I thought can come back again. I know a lot of people been through a lot where I have, are able to finally discuss about the past of Mystic.

My problem with him is very short. So I will explain my perceptions of him. When I became a member at 11 years old, after the help from Logan A, I posted one of my replies about Mystic Realm. I really loved that project. I thought it was amazing until couple minutes later, a warning has arrived with an infraction.

"Please fix your grammar."


I don't understand why he did it any way so I stayed off the forums for a bit.


The next week I came back on the forums, I was posting a topic on the SRB2 discussion. It was unrelated. It was about star wars vs something else? Again, Logan A helped moved my topic to a general discussion so I make sure I don't get another infraction. But again, my grammar was too atrocious. I was a bit developed and I was trying to learn as much as I can to not bring confusion to the community. After 6 replies posted, Mystic showed up and straight up flamed me. He said my grammar is too shitty compared to others and ended up locking my topic with a temp ban.


Then over a month I came back. The banned was removed and yet I hesitated to post anything on the forum. So I thought about making a map called dead zone. My map was NOT 100% done, full of bugs and I barely got a hang with the Doom engine because I couldn't get Sonic in the water. So what I did (that was a Mistake) I published it in public. It got made fun of. Some people liked it. Some people called it boring. Then after that I got perma-banned.


This is not what I expected. I also tried to talked to Mystic on Mibbit and YES I had flamed him back then he banned me again. Arf was there, he told Mystic to unban me right before I exit the website but it pulls me back into the #SRB2fun chat.

Instead of flaming him again, I stayed humbled. I asked him why he keeps banning everyone he doesn't like. He began to mock me based on the way how I typed, talked shit about my project then bans me again.

I suffered from that. I really do but I got over it. It has been a long time and I wish I shouldn't ever argue/throw pissed bottles at him. I always asked myself, if it is unsafe for me to post, don't post. I have learned much more when I was here. Typically I always want him to lose power. Certainly it isn't the right way to think about. But happier enough that kids nowadays don't have to go through all of this again like FNAF.


Anyway, if I am not allowed back due to Mystic's bans. Then I am sorry. Now I have the motives to speak about my horrifying past about him, I will no longer carry those memories anymore and forget about it.

I hope your community grows; positively, and gratefully. May our hearts laid to rest with Sonic Robo Blast 2 fan-made project! to be continued.
 
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During Mystic's removal about his past abuse, I thought can come back again. I know a lot of people been through a lot where I have, are able to finally discuss about the past of Mystic.

My problem with him is very short. So I will explain my perceptions of him. When I became a member at 11 years old, after the help from Logan A, I posted one of my replies about Mystic Realm. I really loved that project. I thought it was amazing until couple minutes later, a warning has arrived with an infraction.

"Please fix your grammar."


I don't understand why he did it any way so I stayed off the forums for a bit.


The next week I came back on the forums, I was posting a topic on the SRB2 discussion. It was unrelated. It was about star wars vs something else? Again, Logan A helped moved my topic to a general discussion so I make sure I don't get another infraction. But again, my grammar was too atrocious. I was a bit developed and I was trying to learn as much as I can to not bring confusion to the community. After 6 replies posted, Mystic showed up and straight up flamed me. He said my grammar is too shitty compared to others and ended up locking my topic with a temp ban.


Then over a month I came back. The banned was removed and yet I hesitated to post anything on the forum. So I thought about making a map called dead zone. My map was 100% done and I barely got a hang with the Doom engine because I couldn't get Sonic in the water. So what I did (that was a Mistake) I published it in public. It got made fun of. Some people liked it. Some people called it boring. Then after that I got perma-banned.


This is not what I expected. I also tried to talked to Mystic on Reddit and YES I had flamed him back then he banned me again. Arf was there, he told Mystic to unban me right before I exit the website but it pulls me back into the #SRB2fun chat.

Instead of flaming him I stayed humbled. I asked him why he keeps banning everyone he doesn't like. He began to mock me based on the way how I typed, talked shit about my project then bans me again.

I suffered from that. I really do but I got over it. It has been a long time and I wish I shouldn't ever argue/throw pissed bottles at him. I always asked myself, if it is unsafe for me to post, don't post. I have learned much more when I was here. Typically I always want him to lose power. Certainly it isn't the right way to think about. But happier enough that kids nowadays don't have to go through all of this again like FNAF.


Anyway, if I am not allowed back due to Mystic's bans. Then I am sorry. Now I have the motives to speak about my horrifying past about him, I will no longer carry those memories anymore and forget about it.

I hope your community grows; positively, and gratefully. May our hearts laid to rest with Sonic Robo Blast 2 fan-made project! to be continued.

Jesus Christ. Mystic is like a redneck who tells immigrants to "speak American." I wouldn't worry about your ban. I doubt a ban from Mystic carries any weight any more. I'm glad he failed to totally turn you off from SRB2 and have returned. Things are much better here now that he and the old guard are gone.
 
I thought it was amazing until couple minutes later, a warning has arrived with an infraction.

"Please fix your grammar."

That brings back some pretty unfortunate memories for me. Mystic gave me a temp ban once or twice over my grammar over a decade ago. I was still just a dumb teenager back then, still think it was kind of a harsh enforcement for what should have been little more than a guideline for a forum intended for all ages and specifically meant to appeal to children. At some point I made a single post replying to a topic a while later and got basically a slap on the wrist in PM's from him warning me not to have bad grammar again.
 
Didn't one of STJr's banned devs get to pass on a message through a current member? I think it was on this very thread. So if Mystic or Rob ever want to apologize or say their piece, whether they're locked out or banned, I'm sure they can reach out and be allowed to pass on a message just the same.
 
Didn't one of STJr's banned devs get to pass on a message through a current member? I think it was on this very thread. So if Mystic or Rob ever want to apologize or say their piece, whether they're locked out or banned, I'm sure they can reach out and be allowed to pass on a message just the same.
No thanks, we don't need their opinion. Also apologies are meaningless these days...
 

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