Hello everyone! Mod Scythe here. Unfortunately, this is not an artist post you were expecting, nor is it a fun update.
recently, it has been brought to our attention that someone on our team is potentially proship. we have, unfortunately, already had to deal with this before, but this time the investigation could not be carried out as quickly (and is still ongoing) due to most mods being unavailable, and we do not make important decisions like this without the whole team, nor is there an automatic removal upon being alerted. We need to look into each claim, and check ourselves, as well as consider many factors such as dates, growth, and of course the actual wording and tone. Since i had been out for a few days, i was not able to tend to this issue and by proxy our other mods could not come to a conclusion as the full team is needed for situations like this.
it was not something that came politely, and i had returned early after seeing clear signs of stress from a mod which inclined me to believe it was from the fundraiser. i had opened my account to dms of personal conversations from a mod being sent to me unconsentually by someone after an argument with them in a ticket, describing the behavior as ‘talking about the mods behind our backs, and using me as a scapegoat’. All of the conversation sent was sensitive in nature, and did not reflect what i was being told at all. this pattern followed when i opened a ticket made in the SRFR server, where the same person had borderline harassed our staff in order to prove a point, bringing up a possible proshipper and giving them (the other mods) less than a few hours to even get a hold of themselves as they were both going through something stressful on their own. The word hypocritical was thrown around quite a lot, and dms from other people not involved were sent with name calling.
we take every case seriously, and i will continue to talk the case of a possible proshipper and giving member over with our mods, HOWEVER, what i do not condone under any circumstances, is blackmailing, defacing, and harassment with clear intent on unfair grounds. Since this ticket was opened, our words have been twisted to fit a clear narrative and every response has been tailored to mark us as ablest or otherwise. We do not entertain this behavior and try to move past it in a professional way, but with multiple tumblr posts of those part of the harassment retracting their support and smearing our names without any context, we felt the need to make this.
We obviously wont post the conversation, since it shows a lot of distress from both sides, but there was clear reaching in many cases that left most of us baffled while trying to do our job of sorting it out. The explanation of what the person in question was saying being not "really reflective of reality" was met with "so you are calling me delusional?"
Similar word twistings were used in almost every message, and what im imagining is being used to call me ablest is the most recent situation. This i WILL show, censored, since its the most prevelant accusation here.
I believe i worded myself clearly here, but I will reiterate it in a clearer way here. I myself grew up with autism along with other mental disorders that had made me rude to others on purpose because I had believed it was my right. How that is, is not anyone's business, but it is important here because throughout the years I had learned to heal from that harmful coping mechanism, and I actively improve myself especially upon critique and limit myself when I notice I am getting out of hand, to the point i am considered a safe person to many. I cannot expect anyone to immediately calm down or shove their emotions away like I can to talk with someone, but I can expect them to at the very least try, and not go to the extent they are at now. Harassing mods for not looking into an all hands on deck case is not something I will ever appreciate, especially when it is targeted and manipulative. The other mods are also autistic, and while some of their messages may have came off as rude this was mediated by talking eachother through responses while I was not there to help since I'm usually the one to do responses the most. This message was brought up out of no where, and while we are deeply sorry for the trauma they went through our mods were simply asking for more time only to be met by more backlash for needing it.
Along with this, since things did get mutually heated, mods NEED to discuss things before sending out messages, including users brought up in tickets, and the one who opened it is aware of this. We do apologize for how the moderation was handled after the mods were pushed, but we do have to remain professional despite that and it is not something that should have happened.
If you do not feel comfortable interacting with us after this, I absolutely understand and that is in your right, but I implore a lot of you to think about where your sources are coming from and ask more questions, at least if you aren't already. Our team has always found the safety of our community to be the top priority, and anything that could shatter that or cause distrust is not something we want.
We care about all of you, even if its not on a personal level because we created this fundraiser to help a charity and bring together two intersecting communities. If we ever slip up, we will take accountability and earn back that trust tenfold because thats the kind of people we are.
We only brought this up due to the number of increasing posts on this situation (one was posted as I was writing this, another was posted prompting me to post ahead of schedule, its only getting worse) and we wouldn't have done this if this was something that could be handled privately. This was something made public against our will, so we have to respond to it.
Have a wonderful day if you're reading this, and please stick around for our continued usual updates after this.