Post by Edna Welthorpe on Apr 29, 2004 7:46:23 GMT -5
At about 13.25 GMT on Wednesday 28 April Grub founder of 10k Islands and Commander in Chief of TITO was deleted by the Moderator Neut.
Seasoned listeners will remember when 10k Islands was a little backwater with no founder. Back in July 2003, the then powerful group the Empire of Power invaded it. Grub sent out a call for help to Ineptia’s Heartland, the Rejected Realms, and the Urbanites.
Nations from those regions and others hurried in and beat back the invaders. Not long afterwards, Grub was made founder of the region, as was then the policy of the Moderators.
10k Islands is a success story, a player region with a population of nearly 600 nations which makes it the second largest region after Europe (excluding feeder and sink regions) and the largest non-world–themed region. It has an evolved political system with distinct parties and represents in many ways what was intended by the region structure.
Grub uses his position as founder to operate as Moderator of the 10k Island HQ ejecting spammers and flamers and reporting them to the Moderators. It seems though that he ran foul of the rules governing how spam can be cleared off HQs. Founders can clear spam by posting their own spam. However, this must be clearly labelled; such as Founder clearing spam/flame. It appears that Grub had been reported for clearing spam with just Bump and had been warned by Moderators twice already, a repeat of this apparently highly-technical offence seems to be what triggered deletion by the infamously robust Mod, Neut.
Within two hours of the deletion, there was a thread in moderation and an outpouring of angst and confusion on the 10k Islands HQ.
Comments quickly came in from players active at the time, Kandarin delegate of The Rejected realms posted:
The Urbanites delegate White Lotus Eaters posted:
Two former Urbanites delegates were united in their belief that the deletion was accident or mistake, 3 am Eternal (now residing in the tiny region Jousters do it Knightly) said that “…he's not the kind of player who flames, spams, or that sort of thing. I think it must be a glitch.” Whilst Arnarchotopia (now of The Proletariat Coalition) said “There must be some mistake, Grub is well known and very liked and respected. He is also well known for following the rules and would never break them in the way suggested.”
A defence fund was even setup in the Gameplay Forum.
Stephistan reacted quickly and informed players that Grub had been deleted for spamming by Neut after two other Mods had warned him some time ago, she asked players to wait until Neut was around to review his own decision.
DEN mounted a minor incursion into 10k Islands and the HQ was joyously plastered with spam.
When Neut did come online, he gave the following statement:
Promptly on resurrection Grub rushed home to thank and reassure before making this statement in Moderation:
I know all mods are volunteers and have lives outside of NationStates, but I think I need to say something. Over the past 30 days, spamming campaigns have been put on by the regions of DEN, A Better Colonial Ambition, and others against the 10000 Islands. Now I'm not talking about "join my region" or "DEN rules" type of posts, I am talking about very vulgar, purposely rule breaking (like AIicea's clearing of TITO orders from the 10000 Islands regional message board two nights ago) or directly threatening messages.
For each of these (in some cases I probably only did this for one nation in one of the waves of the attack) NationStates rules were *very* clearly broken and mod reports were filed along with the evidence that showed exactly what they did. When different mods wrote me saying that "I can't act against that nation because the 10000 Islands message board was cleared by the time I looked at it" (note that the mods had seen me clearing my message board and never once mentioned anything about "Founder Clearing." Anyway, my point is that while I am grateful to be back, I was deleted for not adding the word "Founder" to my clearing posts and am now on my "final warning" even though I was never told before what I did was wrong, yet nations who very, very clearly break NationStates rules are allowed to continue on like what they do is acceptable.
The full statement is worth a read.
Well, sorry I did not include any laughs and sorry that the story is so late. Nevertheless, there you have it. I will start a thread you can all reply to for corrections and comments.
Edna
Seasoned listeners will remember when 10k Islands was a little backwater with no founder. Back in July 2003, the then powerful group the Empire of Power invaded it. Grub sent out a call for help to Ineptia’s Heartland, the Rejected Realms, and the Urbanites.
Nations from those regions and others hurried in and beat back the invaders. Not long afterwards, Grub was made founder of the region, as was then the policy of the Moderators.
10k Islands is a success story, a player region with a population of nearly 600 nations which makes it the second largest region after Europe (excluding feeder and sink regions) and the largest non-world–themed region. It has an evolved political system with distinct parties and represents in many ways what was intended by the region structure.
Grub uses his position as founder to operate as Moderator of the 10k Island HQ ejecting spammers and flamers and reporting them to the Moderators. It seems though that he ran foul of the rules governing how spam can be cleared off HQs. Founders can clear spam by posting their own spam. However, this must be clearly labelled; such as Founder clearing spam/flame. It appears that Grub had been reported for clearing spam with just Bump and had been warned by Moderators twice already, a repeat of this apparently highly-technical offence seems to be what triggered deletion by the infamously robust Mod, Neut.
Within two hours of the deletion, there was a thread in moderation and an outpouring of angst and confusion on the 10k Islands HQ.
Comments quickly came in from players active at the time, Kandarin delegate of The Rejected realms posted:
From my experience, Grub would never violate any rule on purpose. He was one of the most upstanding, honorable players out there. There must be some mistake.
The Urbanites delegate White Lotus Eaters posted:
I second those who say that Grub is a courteous and honourable player, and would request the moderators to review this case as a matter of urgency.
Two former Urbanites delegates were united in their belief that the deletion was accident or mistake, 3 am Eternal (now residing in the tiny region Jousters do it Knightly) said that “…he's not the kind of player who flames, spams, or that sort of thing. I think it must be a glitch.” Whilst Arnarchotopia (now of The Proletariat Coalition) said “There must be some mistake, Grub is well known and very liked and respected. He is also well known for following the rules and would never break them in the way suggested.”
A defence fund was even setup in the Gameplay Forum.
Stephistan reacted quickly and informed players that Grub had been deleted for spamming by Neut after two other Mods had warned him some time ago, she asked players to wait until Neut was around to review his own decision.
DEN mounted a minor incursion into 10k Islands and the HQ was joyously plastered with spam.
When Neut did come online, he gave the following statement:
Grub's nation was reported by multiple nations for having spammed his region with 'bump'. Now, as has been clearly stated many a time before in the forums - when clearing spam, founders need to indicate that such actions are being taken.
In other words: 'bump' is spam, 'founder clearing spam/flame' is not spam.
Now, I've taken everyone's posts into account, and also the age of Grub's nation. As a result, I'm going to change this to a final warning and resurrect your nation.
Just remember, 'bump' is spam; 'founder clearing spam/flame' is not (this only applies to the Founder capacity)
In other words: 'bump' is spam, 'founder clearing spam/flame' is not spam.
Now, I've taken everyone's posts into account, and also the age of Grub's nation. As a result, I'm going to change this to a final warning and resurrect your nation.
Just remember, 'bump' is spam; 'founder clearing spam/flame' is not (this only applies to the Founder capacity)
Promptly on resurrection Grub rushed home to thank and reassure before making this statement in Moderation:
…
I know all mods are volunteers and have lives outside of NationStates, but I think I need to say something. Over the past 30 days, spamming campaigns have been put on by the regions of DEN, A Better Colonial Ambition, and others against the 10000 Islands. Now I'm not talking about "join my region" or "DEN rules" type of posts, I am talking about very vulgar, purposely rule breaking (like AIicea's clearing of TITO orders from the 10000 Islands regional message board two nights ago) or directly threatening messages.
For each of these (in some cases I probably only did this for one nation in one of the waves of the attack) NationStates rules were *very* clearly broken and mod reports were filed along with the evidence that showed exactly what they did. When different mods wrote me saying that "I can't act against that nation because the 10000 Islands message board was cleared by the time I looked at it" (note that the mods had seen me clearing my message board and never once mentioned anything about "Founder Clearing." Anyway, my point is that while I am grateful to be back, I was deleted for not adding the word "Founder" to my clearing posts and am now on my "final warning" even though I was never told before what I did was wrong, yet nations who very, very clearly break NationStates rules are allowed to continue on like what they do is acceptable.
…
The full statement is worth a read.
Well, sorry I did not include any laughs and sorry that the story is so late. Nevertheless, there you have it. I will start a thread you can all reply to for corrections and comments.
Edna