After much time and consideration, I have decided I can no longer participate in a community that, as part of its moderation staff, employs a racist. I will not mention the name (they know who they are), but even this omission makes me feel guilty. The entire boards network is meant to bring people together, but as long as a racist is involved, that purpose is tainted and cannot truly be achieved. Admittedly, this has had no visible influence on their moderation (thankfully we have not had an incident that would make such a bias clear, like ignoring personal attacks based on belonging to said group), but in private discussion this bias is all too clear, and I will not associate myself with something they are so heavily involved with. Any decision to judge a group of people by the actions of a select group of them is not a decision I support, and in good conscience I cannot stand by this, especially as in the position this person is in, the bias will eventually come into play. I do not know if the administrators know of the bias the individual carries, but I do, and that's just too much for me. I do not call for others to leave; I do not call for others to flame or spam anybody. I will still answer private messages and welcome discussion via PM or IM on this, or any other matter. If at a future time said individual either changes drastically in that belief or are demodded, I may return, but I refuse to stay while this sort of belief plays a role in that persons life. It is my decision to honour my friends, both in real life and online, belonging to the discriminated group, and so I say goodbye. I hereby relinquish my moderater status and no longer plan to actively participate on the boards community. Thanks for the fun while it lasted.
HOLY SH**! You sound preety determined on this, so I guess there's not stopping you (there never is anyways ). I know you may not like me much, but nonetheless, I still wish you a good time in the future!
Knowing the circumstances more or less, now, I can't say I agree with your decision, but I won't fight it. Love the sinner, hate the sin and all that... Well, good luck, I guess. :/ See you on A3 (er, Simon-soft) and MSN?
wow umm ok so i have no idea what's really happened. All i know is what you've stated in this thread for everyone to view so therefore i reserve the right to question this action... i may not have been here that long in retrospect but from what ive read from your posts, you always seemed like the type to defend and justify your beliefs and never give up. i dont know how long this has been going on but it seems pretty sudden...again maybe has been going on for a while but you didnt say that in your post. i agree that this should be a place of acceptance seeing as wow everyone here is soo diverse...we have people here of all sorts of different races, beliefs, sexual orientation, and personalities. id be willing to stand up for each and every one of them too if anyone ever hated them for it...i guess i just never thought you'd leave like this i dont see how an individual can change if no one steps up to them and KEEPS telling them that what they are doing is wrong... i respect that. im sad to see you leave. fair thee well Nephilim!
Sorry that you feel that way Neph. 1) My opinion is that many people have racist tendencies, and they may be great or small - and since it is unreasonable / impossible to expect that people can remove all of these tendencies (as they may have long-established histories / roots in one's psyche etc.) then you can't assume that any community or group (e.g. moderators as you've pointed out) will definitely NOT have them (in their PRIVATE opinions). (BTW that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to encourage people to lose / remove these tendencies.) 2) However, whatever about one's private opinions, if racist comments are made about others (either in public through a forum or through some messages sent to other users), or if decisions are made that reflect these racists tendencies, then this is a serious issue. If there has been something done that relates to (2), then please let me know.
BTW this means if you have received a racist message from someone, you can PM me with it and I will deal with it.
They have been told this is wrong, using their exact logic against them; they respond that (said group) is "exceptional" and is different and said logic does not apply to them. Said manifestations occured in private discussion, and the now-dead M2A chatroom. In the chat it did lead to ignoring requests for help from a specific user.
When all is said and done, boards.jp is a public social outlet. The team behind it is made up of volunteers who work within their own time frames to keep it an environment where discussion can take place without the fear of being at the mercy of flames or other malicious behaviour. There is no exception when it comes to breaking the rules in place. We will (and have, in the past) take action against those who make personal attacks on the forums - be it racist, gender, age, or interest, be they member or moderator. We cannot normally involve ourselves with whatever correspondence you have with boards members offsite, but if there is serious harrassment the lines of communication are open. I, for one, do not count the chatroom as a reliable line of communication, but the onsite private messaging system and good old email are good avenues. It's hard to take an accusation at full face value when a complaint is never lodged. If you personally had a problem with a team member's behaviour, why was the subject never breached with myself and Cloud until now? Suddenly this entire thread and issue you have materializes from thin air, and coincidentally following a complaint lodged against you. Use the appropriate channels of communication.
Neph, this really is shocking. I couldn't see you leaving so soon. I didn't get to know you a lot, but it was fun while it lasted. Good luck in the future. You have my best wishes.
Because in the past, no action could/would be taken if the issues came up in the chatroom (regarding incidents involving [Snip.], a member of the discriminated group). To be blunt that's disturbed me for a long time anyway. If the very leaders were unwilling to take action the first time for admitted racism off-forum, what's to make them do so now? Recent events however simply gave me enough of a push to hang up the gloves. Ask Ciel; I've been mulling over leaving for over a month. Supply of a recent chatlog regarding this was basically deemed as not worth worrying about anyway. I may as well just come out with it, because people keep asking. [Snip.] edit: As far as peoples complaints have gone, have I ever cared about what other people have said?
Perhaps the chat is not as "policed" as it should be. I will admit that I have turned a blind eye to the chat channel for more than a year now. It is "official" in some sense of the word, but I have always regarding it as more of an affiliate than a true extension of the forums. However, we had a former moderator who took it upon themself to watch the channel, and it was not received well at all when it was aggressively moderated. I remember following up on the [Snip.] incident you mention. I more or less hammered home the point that boards.jp cannot tell you what to think, but not to engage in racist or personal attacks within its realm. It was a long discussion, and at its conclusion I was under the impression my point was understood. I tend to hand out second chances and give the benefit of the doubt - I have fought for ban liftings in the past, and I have let inappropriate behaviour off with warnings. In this case it was a warning under the agreement that it would not happen again. We do not tell you how to live your life, what to believe in, what to eat, how you should manage your sex life, how many layers of underwear you should wear in the winter - you are free to choose all of that. But we do tell everyone that comes into the BJP house to wipe their feet at the door and to act civil to one another. Freedom to enjoy yourself, but not at the expense of someone else. If you are on your merry way all the best to you. But please don't litter your tracks with a smear campaign.
Very well, but this is no smear campaign. This is simply a light on the truth, nothing more, as an explanation for why I choose to leave.
Neph: As much as I hate racism, one cannot send someone to jail just because he thinks this or that way. That would be crossing a line. If you don't agree with a decision taken in the past, and that you cannot change, I'm sorry, but it belongs to the past. Furthermore, if the particular decision that led you to leave, did not harm anyone, why are you complaining? Perhaps that decision or measure was not "strong enough"? (I'm just theorizing, tho). Anyway, my point is, I really don't think it's wise for you to leave. I vote for you to stay, unless you have more opportunity to support your views by leaving. No matter what my personal views are regarding you staying or leaving, I frankly don't agree on your reason to leave. If you insist on leaving, well... good luck. I guess there's nothing more I can say. We'll miss you.
It did harm people. As noted earlier, another user had a bad experience; this emotionally disturbed me and a few other people who bore witness. (edit: not to mention the user themselves [/edit]). This is akin to, say, deciding not to vote for a political party because the vice presidential candidate said he was anti-whatever. In regards to leaving, there have been a small hill of things that have made me wonder about it, but this really pushed me. However said hill is mostly a matter of personal opinion and bears no importance to anybody but me. Thanks.
This is making me wonder a few things. But I also don't care for racisim. I don't know enough to comment on the said acts of racism. So I will say good bye Neph. Sorry to see this happen and I hate to see you go. It has been fun and there is always MSN.
Indeed, I don't know much of this either. Neph told me some of it, but surely there must be more to it than I heard, else it wouldn't be such an issue, I think. In any case, I'll miss seeing you around here, Neph. On the other subject, I still believe they are a good person. They have a dark... not-so-secret, now, but we all have skeletons in our closets. As bad as racism is, from my knowledge it seems to be pretty minor. I know I wouldn't hold it too much against them, especially since it's had seemingly so little effect on their personality and their duties. I may not have been around from the start, but I've never seen any racist behaviour from them on the boards, ever. Certainly, people have done worse...
i am shocked. i never thought i would live to see that day when you'd leave BJP. but i also respect your decision to leave. I feel, you could have left that out of your post. Their secrets are not our business. i still hold my respect for [Snip.] i have spoken with them on and off boards and have never witnessed any sort of racism. but i wasn't there, so who knows. See you on AIM/ MSN Neph.
Of course they aren't our business. I'd have not said it at all had it not already been revealed. I don't like how it was made public on them, really. A PM probably would have been better than this thread.
