Hear the other side of the story about the New Year's exchange, and form your own opinion.
tl;dr: Mistakes were made by both parties, but she violated the rules and spirit of the exchange, made her own choice to send back the dragon, and then decided to turn the community against the operators of the exchange in retaliation. People need to stop being bullies and read all sides of the story before jumping to conclusions. The harassment M and D are experiencing is disgusting.Â
I actually created a tumblr just to provide another perspective on this drama (I'm usually not a big fan of how arguments devolve into personal attacks on this site and have thus stayed away from it), because watching people make judgements about the situation when they aren't even fully informed or involved is upsetting me greatly. I would like to provide some more information about this so that people have the full story before deciding how they feel. (Disclaimer: It should be blatantly obvious from my writing style and unfamiliarity with tumblr, but I'm getting accused, so let me be clear - I'm not M or D, nor am I one of their friends. I am a person who put M in a position of exceptional trust for an event I did and had a great experience with them, and I was also signed up to the New Year's exchange.)
From the very beginning, the rules of the New Year's Exchange have been that you submit items to the pool - if you don't, you haven't actually entered validly. Providing items is mandatory if you want to receive items - in fact, it was declared to be a sort of equivalent-exchange (put something good in, get something good back, something that you've always been dreaming of getting; ultimately though, he ended up giving people what they wanted even if they sent junk in, because he had a large savings and wanted to make this really special for people. For more information, please, please read his post here yourself: http://kyle-disease.tumblr.com/post/109164049396/why-did-you-take-back-the-dragon-was-it-because). The user in question never submitted any items to the pool. She has admitted this herself, in this screenshot she posted on her tumblr: http://i.imgur.com/kGiIAyq.png (I also watched her white knights state that the two exchange coordinators were lying about this when they first shared the information, while fully aware that they had no evidence to back up their accusation. This is a large part of the problem.)
He was very ill during the week prior to this happening, and with minimal helpers, it's understandable that things slip through the cracks. Having been involved in exchanges myself, I know that it's impossible to record everything perfectly - mistakes just happen, and the fact that she had posted her wishlist yet hadn't sent anything in was overlooked. It's important to realize that she received the gifts in error in the first place. Even if it might have been an accident on her end, she was gaming the exchange by trying to participate without having sent in any gifts to the pool.Â
She was violating not just the rules but the spirit of the exchange by accepting and keeping gifts that she had fraudulently obtained to begin with. The fact that they initially made a mistake and sent the items to her, doesn't excuse the extremely unethical decision to try to pursue keeping the items, and sending a witch-hunt after these two innocent people. If you received an expensive package that was meant for someone else to your house by mistake, not only would it be illegal to keep it if the sender reached out to you, but it would be very unethical to think you have any legitimate claim to that package.
I want to pass on this statement that has been clarified by the two exchange coordinators over the past day or two: they are fine with people who legitimately entered the exchange doing whatever they wish with the items they get. The only reason this person was asked to return the items she received was because she had received them by mistake. This is not the case with anyone else, and of course they don't expect people to keep their stuff forever and ever. That's silly and it's silly that anybody even tried to say that. People are spreading blatantly false and illogical information without even asking these people directly what they were trying to do!
Also, nobody "stole" her dragon. She was given a very reasonable choice: return the items she'd fraudulently obtained, or not participate in events hosted by them in the future. She chose to return the dragon and sprite of her own volition, and he even asked her what items she would actually get use out of and want. He gave her some scrolls in return for doing the right thing, even though he had no obligation to do that, especially when she was gaming the exchange in the first place by taking out of the pool when she'd put nothing in. In the end, she still got scrolls from him even though she didn't contribute to the pool in the exchange and was not entitled to any of that.
She made the choice to return the dragons, and then decided that she'd changed her mind and actually was going to punish the exchange coordinators for the choice she made. This drama and witch-hunting was entirely unnecessary. She could have just kept the items and not participated in future exchanges. This drama is being propagated because this user did something unethical, and then became remorseful because it ultimately took something very valuable out of their hands, and now she's punishing these two people for her own choice! It's up to you to decide whether you feel that this is fair. If you want to make the argument that her behaviour is justified because she was given the egg and she can do whatever she wants with the dragon in her possession regardless of the reason it got there, then you should make the same argument for him. Regardless of the reasons, she chose to send the dragon back to him and that dragon became his to do with as he wished.
Yet instead of doing something selfish or spiteful with it, he sold it and used the money received from it to continue buying scrolls and goodies for other people who'd legitimately signed up to the exchange. He is not at all greedy - the event was born from a desire to spread joy and give presents to people who'd deserved it - and it's sickening me to see people accusing these two of using the exchange to scam people. There was a show-off thread that was full of overjoyed people who'd received amazing gifts (despite some putting virtually nothing in), before this person and their army of white knights came in and completely derailed the thread with vicious personal attacks and public call-outs (which are against FR's rules, by the way).
The show-off thread had to be deleted. A thread that was designed to give people a place to share their joy and talk about their presents had to be deleted by the admins because the people involved (and not involved) in this couldn't control themselves and insisted upon souring this entire event because they disagree with how they perceive this one player was handled in it. The thread the remaining exchange coordinator had to make after this to try and let the people involved in the Exchange know it would be a few days and not to worry, also had to be deleted because white knights came into it and were harassing her (which made it very hard to defend herself against the people spreading lies and declaring the exchange a scam, which is simply not true).
I don't believe there is any valid excuse for ruining their threads repeatedly like this. And I've seen the same few people following these two players around on FR, posting biased, hyperbolic statements about this on any topic they go into. This is token bullying and harassment and it's not justified, even if all the ridiculous accusations they're getting were true. So many people heard one side of this story, and jumped onto the bullying bandwagon, despite having absolutely nothing to do with the situation and not enough wisdom to wait to hear the other side.
Even if you don't agree with the way they went about this, nobody should be supporting such large-scale harassment of these two users who (even though they made some mistakes) set out to do something positive in the community.Â
This could have been handled better by everybody involved. I feel that he should not have posted in her thread when she was auctioning off the dragon, and had a knee-jerk negative reaction, but rather that they had messaged her privately and tried to stay level and explain where they were coming from to her. She felt intimidated, I completely get that. She was worried about her reputation. This could have been avoided by some more patience on their end. They also should have checked to be sure she sent items in before they sent her some gifts. Finally, they should not have participated in this back-and-forth arguing quite so much; it's easy for me to say this however when I'm not the one being attacked.
However, this user also made some mistakes. She should never have signed up to the exchange if she didn't care enough about the other participants to send items in to the pool. I won't comment on whether she should have hatched the egg or tried to sell the dragon, because I think it probably arose from a (probably an innocent) misunderstanding between everyone.
She most certainly should not have returned the dragon and sprite if she was going to be so upset by it that she felt the need to start a witch-hunt (I'm sure the two players would give her the dragon back in a heartbeat now if it would take back all of the harassment they've received. 4 million treasure (that they didn't even keep) is not worth having your name slandered and an entire community turned against you with a one-sided story). And nothing justifies the intensity with which she has propagated this. Even if she didn't intend for it to turn out this way, the result is that these two people who had good intentions have been bullied and harassed so much they not only are quitting FR but they're never doing an exchange again. That is really sad.
This was an upsetting situation for all involved, but anyone can be the better person here and hang up the conflict. Both sides messed up at various points. Both sides are culpable, and this has caused enough pain for all of them. I wish that everyone involved would just part ways and try to move on from this (it would be the adult thing to do). All I ask is that the people on the outside read everything and get all the facts before forming an opinion, and that you don't allow yourself to be swayed by one-sided stories. This isn't a black-and-white issue, and I don't believe that there's one party here that can or should take full responsibility.
