I don’t generally like to give drama the time of day, but I think it’s important to address a few misconceptions here. And yes, I’m aware that the top and bottom posts are most likely just trying to discredit me and the blog, but I do want to make a few things absolutely clear. For one, these people have absolutely no idea who I am. I know that because the closest thing to a ‘clique’ that I belong to is my primary guild---and it’s been more than two weeks since any member of our guild was last mentioned on GW2Notes. In fact, the people with whom I am close OOCly are not often mentioned on Notes. Why? They’re not big on tumblr. Except for a few, the posts about them have been made by me and there’s not a lot of them. But if you do so sincerely think you know who I am, I challenge you to call me out on my personal or IC blog. Both have asks open. I don’t connect myself visibly with this blog because I want to avoid having any particular guild or person, or even server connected to this blog. I don’t want it to be a place where only certain people feel that their posts are relevant. I want this to be a place where everyone can be celebrated. You suggest that there are people I dislike OOC, and that I would go as far as to refuse to publish posts about those people. I can tell you now that there is no one who bothers me to a level where I would be so petty. I believe that everyone should have a chance to see their name written down and nice words following it---even if I downright hated someone (and I see no point in hating people on the internet, come on, what does that even achieve?) I would still believe they deserved that. I am not censoring this blog. End of story. You refer to ‘the people’ running this blog, which is also false. Although I do have a partner in this venture, and---surprise surprise!---we are friends, at the moment I am running this alone. I don’t have any issue with that. But there is no boardroom of bitchy roleplayers laughing at submissions, turning down what doesn’t suit our idea of ‘good people’. I don’t recall deleting any posts. Ever. I send everything through to the blog unless it is aimed to hurt someone, or irrelevant to the blog. Did you send a post through saying something nice about someone, or a guild? It would have been posted. Yes. I do see frequent submissions about people from the same group. No, I am not in that group. In fact, they probably don’t know I even exist. Have I been mentioned on the site? Once, maybe twice. That is the truth. Does it bother me? No. GW2Notes was started in response to a vicious post on GW2Secrets that attacked someone I cared deeply about. It was later removed (and I’m still grateful to the mods over there for that) for being downright cruel and too easy to guess who it was about. It made me (and the others who were involved) so blindingly angry to see how hurt this person was, over something so stupid and petty as an anonymous post. We still don’t know who posted it or why, but I do know that the person it referenced still feels awful even now. That was more than a year ago. A year. A whole year of feeling shitty because someone took the time to release their dislike behind a coward’s anonymity. For those of you playing at home, this person is no longer part of the GW2 community. Even though we were just as upset as they were, that one post was enough to plant in their mind the idea that even those of us who were close to them secretly thought those things. That post destroyed someone’s enjoyment of the game. You can take that as a win, or think it’s hilarious that someone was so upset by an anonymous attack that they went to that level, you can snort and you can roll your eyes, but at the end of the day---someone got hurt. That’s not something I’m okay with. But I can’t stop people from venting their frustrations. What I can do, and what GW2Notes was created for, is give people a space to balance out that venting. Because just as an anonymous post can destroy someone’s happiness, it can also bolster it. It has the ability to make someone smile when they see their name, to have in writing that they are cared for within the community. And well you might say that saying such things anonymously is still cowardly, but I’d rather people hid behind anonymity to throw confetti and roses as opposed to grenades. Not to mention that there’s no requirement to be anonymous. Say something nice, however you want to say it, and I’ll post it. It’s honestly as simple as that. If you have an issue with me, please confront me directly. Please don’t post mis-informed comments anonymously. I am open to any way in which I can make this blog better and more positive for the community, you just have to work with me. Regards, Admin S.
