#My first blog got unbanned!
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Hi Hi!
My first account was unbanned so I will post there and this blog will be like a backup 😅
My main blog: @the-cosmic-cowbo-y
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hi! jsyk i think your blog may have been shadowbanned.
this is so funny of you to say
#i didn't have messaging for like 5 months#and i didn't rlly do anything ab it since i am not rping rn#but i got on for the first time in a few weeks and my messaging is back#and idk if asks were banned too and that's why i'm just got this ask#or if the timing was someone finally noticed right before i got unbanned#also who even follows this blog#luv ya!
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The ultimate shadow ban survivor guide
I've seen multiple people I follow, or their mutuals affected by shadow bans lately (makes me wonder if it's @staff's attempts to fight bots going totally haywire). As someone who survived a 2-month-long shadow ban on my main this winter, I thought I'd make a post.
First step of being shadow banned: calm down and take a breath. A shadow ban is just a stupid glitch in tumblr's anti-spam system. You're not losing your blog. You're gonna need a whole lot of patience, and deal with inconveniences, but it's fixable.
Read the incredibly useful post All About Shadowban by @that-damn-girl. It outlines the symptoms quite well. The only thing I'd point out is "your original posts won’t be visible to your followers either" - afaik that doesn't happen. Everything you post and reblog will still be visible to your followers, and also they can interact with your posts - like them, reblog them, reply to them.
Just like the post says, contact support. I recommend using a different email than what your banned blog is registered to; not because your ticket won't go through (mine actually did, as I found out when they finally replied), but because you might not receive an email confirmation for your ticket (it's somehow tied to the anti-spam thing, I think), and you're going to worry and try to send more tickets, like I did.
Now wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. They are SLOW. I've seen some miraculous 1-day unbans in the #shadow ban tag, but most people, like me, wait around a month for support to reply. Those are the same guys going through thousands of bot reports every day in addition to user tickets.
If you're going to wait, might as well keep blogging. Now if this is your sideblog that's shadow banned, consider yourself lucky. Make a new temporary sideblog, use it to post your original stuff so it goes into tags (mind that it might take a few days for a new blog to start showing up in tags). Reblog everything to your shadow banned blog so you still have all content in one place and your followers see it. If it's your main that's banned, you can still do that, but there's the extra pain of not being able to reply to posts or send non-anon Asks, since that is only done from main. Might need to register a separate account for that.
Some more fun facts under readmore.
Fun fact #1
Trying to send support follow-up emails in the request confirmation email isn't going to do anything to speed up the process. But I did tweet at them using this tumblr support summoning picture by @cornmayor and offered a raccoon blood sacrifice to resolve my issue when it was like a month with no response. This is what they replied.
3 hours later I got an email that my shadowban was lifted. I honestly don't know if it was a coincidence, but I mean, this is tumblr staff. Maybe they do accept blood sacrifices.
Fun fact #2
If you're wondering why my shadow ban lasted 2 months if I got a support reply after 1 month, well. It's hard to say exactly how their ban/unban system works bc support replies exclusively with pre-written template sentences, but basically they fucked up. The first time they told me my blog has been restored, I gained pretty much all functions back, except that my posts were still not appearing in tags. Which means probably that being hidden from tags is some kind of different flag on your blog that they forgot to remove. So I had to send a follow-up ticket and wait another month.
My advice is, when they tell you it's fixed, don't take that at face value, go and check all the functions you'd lost (replies, messaging, asks, tagging, appearing in notes, getting mentioned by others).
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Discords, forums and a decade’s worth of allegations: how Nanowrimo started a revolution against it.
I’m just gonna copy paste the Reddit post since. I cannot figure Tumblr out. So I apologise for the weird formatting.
If you’d rather read the Reddit posts:
Trigger warnings: child abuse, assault, predators, racism, fetishes, ableism, terrorism, bombings, and just plain abuse.
This will also include brief mentions of religion.
**Terms used in the Nanowrimo community:**
Nanowrimo: national novel writing month: a writing challenge to write 50k words in November. This is also used to refer to the organisation, a Californian 501c3 that the challenge originates from, with a website and a forum. However the challenge can be done without the organisation. Often called ‘nano’ for short.
Young Writers’ Program: a Nanowrimo run platform aimed at people under 18. A separate site with classrooms and its own separate forum. The forum is for people aged 13-18. Often called ‘YWP’ for short.
Municipal Liasions: community organisers responsible for one region. This could be a city or a country depending on size and population. They help organise local events and mod their regional forums. Municipal Liasions are not paid. There are several hundreds of them. Often called ‘MLs’ for short.
Christian Teens Together: a group on the main Nanowrimo forums, and the largest group on the forums. Despite the name the group is not entirely composed of Christians or teens, however that is where the group originates. The majority of the group are minors. Often called ‘CTT’ for short.
Random Thoughts and Exclamations: the main thread of the YWP forums, basically a general. Often called ‘RTAE’ for short.
Prior to the meltdown, Nanowrimo had around 15 salaried staff. These are collectively referred to as HQ. However, they also have several forum moderators. These receive a $100 check at the end of the year, but are mostly considered volunteers. These mods have no involvement in the main site. However, some staff that worked on the forums were salaried and had main site involvement and so will be considered part of HQ unless stated later on.
**Scam sponsorships.**
In December 2022, a group of Nanowrimo users raised concerns about a pair of vanity publishers that had sponsored the Nanowrimo challenge. (A vanity publisher or vanity press is a publisher where the author pays the costs and surrenders a large portion of the rights to their work.) Nanowrimo had promoted discounts for these publishers, Inkitt and Manuscripts, to winners of its challenge. Staff and mods suspended and muted multiple accounts who raised the initial concerns, but eventually allowed a forum thread discussing concerns to remain. One of the affected users explained the concerns as follows:
> Now that I’ve been unbanned, I will try to keep the last 24 hours of thoughts…concise. Inkitt should NEVER have been accepted as a NaNoWriMo sponsor. They have changed business models every few years, and every business model has involved using up the first pub rights of any author who submits, WHICH IS A BIG DEAL, and promising them sketchy ‘prizes’ or ‘contracts’ in return. People who have given them a try also say that getting their content removed is a nightmare and they had to threaten legal action. These are just the starting points.
> There are blog posts about them from many authors dating back to at least 2016, [including my own](https://wrrrdnrrrdgrrrl.com/2016/05/23/inkitt-scam-spam-no-thank-you-maam/), that are easily discoverable by searching “Inkitt scam.” None of this should ever have happened.
> That said, it happened. And the mods panicked, and I went and wrote a [whole new blog](https://wrrrdnrrrdgrrrl.com/2022/11/30/on-nanowrimo-inkitt-and-being-an-author/ ) (which I will update soon to reflect NaNo’s better handling of things today) to warn people away from Inkitt because I wasn’t allowed to do so on the forums. And because I have some audience and writer friends, that got around, and [Victoria Strauss](https://twitter.com/victoriastrauss/status/1598114401818902529) got involved, and eventually we got here.
The following day, the Executive Director responded to the concerns with this message:
> I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and feedback, and want to start with an apology that our vetting process hasn’t met the high values we place on our community care. It shouldn’t have come to this (like so many of you said), but now that it has, we’re taking it as a learning moment to improve our sponsorship processes and find ways to dig deeper into an evaluation of a company.
> We’ve also ended the sponsorship with Inkitt and Manuscripts.
> Currently, the vetting process involves talking to writers, editors, or those working in the writing/publishing “ecosystem,” and then interviewing the potential companies. We often have a long-term relationship with a company and work with them year-over-year, but as the writing/publishing landscape changes so dramatically every year, we often find out about new companies and reach out to them or they reach out to us. We will do a more thorough evaluation of these processes and policies as part of our 2023 planning process to see what changes we need to make. Our goal will be to ensure our policies are in line with our organizational values, and to make sure the process is more transparent. For example, we’re discussing how we can ensure that a wider range of community and trusted industry voices are heard in this process, and on that note, we have already asked Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware to act as a consultant. We’re really pleased that she’s generously agreed to this, as this is her area of expertise and her ethical standards are admirably high. Also, she’s been passionately committed to analyzing products and services for writers for so long.
> We’ll also be sure to consult the resources you’ve already named, such as the various forum threads where you all have been sharing your experiences with companies.
> Thank you again for raising your concerns. We take your feedback very seriously and center it in our plans to care for the community. I’m not just saying that—this has been a valuable learning moment to help us do a better job of vetting sponsors more thoroughly. Your voices are the most important thing we consider when making decisions—not sponsors, but you. I’m sorry that it hasn’t always felt like that in the past, and hope that we can make sure it does in the future. Like you, we think NaNoWriMo should be a place where writers can come for trusted resources. We’re disappointed in ourselves that we lost that trust, and we hope to regain it. I invite you to send on feedback at any time to [email protected].
While Inkitt and Manuscripts were removed as sponsors, it recently emerged that Inkitt was a major donor for Nanowrimo. Some users were beginning to feel that Nanowrimo was protecting their own interests over the interests of their users, which only got worse when new allegations came out the following year.
**Inaction against predators.**
In May 2023, a group of users raised allegations about a moderator of Christian Teens Together. The [allegations](https://nitter.net/Arumi_kai/status/1722007756058574916#m) were that this moderator was luring minors onto a fetish site they ran. The allegations were sent to the Executive Director and the Director of Programs, but no actions were taken after a month. An FBI report had already been filed, but the fetish site was being scrubbed, suggesting that the staff there had been tipped off after the allegations. The group built a new case and after public pressure, got the moderator removed for violations of the forum Code of Conduct after they started threatening the group and the Nanowrimo organisation offsite. This moderator could be a whole post on their own, and has used sockpuppet accounts to lurk on the forums and has commented on the situation on their tumblr. They are often referred to as Mod X, and will be referred to as such in this essay.
In June, a thread on moderation was opened, and a discussion began about the culture of CTT, where it became clear that Mod X had isolated the group and emotionally abused them. It was also revealed that the CTT had a ‘three strikes and shutdown’ system for a group with over a thousand members. One user explained the problem as follows:
> How the CTT members were given only three strikes for over one thousand people is, frankly, appalling and obscene. I can understand treating them as a group; if you give them all three strikes, that’s over three thousand strikes. But they need more than three. But even with that, hanging that last strike over their head for over six months is unacceptable, and yes, I said it before and I’ll say it again, it is emotionally abusive to tell them that one more strike and they’re getting shut down for over six months. Never knowing who’s going to make the mistake that gets them shut down or when, and worrying about when someone messes up. Worrying that they’re going to be one that messes up and is blamed by the group. Terrified of reporting things because what if that report is the reason their community is shut down?
More users came forward with grooming allegations, but these posts were frozen and hidden. However, the cat was out of bag, at least on the main forums. And in a retrospective thread on the 10th of November, a former YWP user spoke up about a similar situation that had happened the month before.
> They did this to the YWP too. When a message was sent outlining evidence of a predator it was ignored for 3 days (iirc) and initially responded with ‘we reviewed this account and found nothing that broke our rules’ only after it was posted publicly on the forums. They did take the account down, but only hours later (once we had made a major fuss with pretty much everyone who knew the situation calling the mods out) and with no further communication for two days, which sent us into a spiral of panic and teens leaving as they didn’t feel safe on the platform.
The following day, the COO responded to this post with:
> Hi there, I wanted to speak to this directly since it relates to a lot of the youth safety issues people are bringing up, and YWP has different systems. First off, we did indeed look into the participant that was flagged on YWP. [YWP lead] and [Director of Programs] discussed and investigated on Oct. 3; they responded on Oct. 4. Our search into their history and their other social media accounts did not find evidence that they were a predator or someone else than the person they claimed to be. We were wrong to say that nothing crossed the lines set by our codes of conduct, and we should have issued a reminder about those codes. However, no violation crossed the line that would require banning. We kept a close eye on this account following the reports and encouraged participants to follow their guts and keep a wide berth. After the account was suspended due to user flags, we agreed their account should not be reinstated.
> In the long term, we’re bringing in additional moderators in the YWP forums. Role plays occasionally skirt the codes around keeping it PG and partly in response to this situation we’re adding a volunteer mod next week who will just be monitoring role plays and the forum for personal conversations, where the majority of these flags came from.
This response was immediately torn apart by the adults on the thread, while more members of the YWP started speaking out about what they had been dealing with for years.
**The Wild West of the YWP.**
The YWP had two or three mods, which changed across the years due to differing roles. These were members of HQ, and now have all been fired or quit. These were: a Lead Forums Moderator who resigned in October 2023 and had stopped working with the YWP a while before that, a Community Manager who was put on leave at the beginning of November 2023, and the aforementioned YWP lead and Director of Programs who were either fired or quit in December 2023.
There are three parts to the YWP: the individual users, which are under 18, the classrooms, which are controlled by a teacher and are meant for educational settings, and the forums, which are open to users aged 13-18 whether they’re writing individually or as part of a classroom.
However, investigation revealed that the security of these classrooms are remarkably lax. It only required an email, username and password for an ‘educator’ to set up a classroom, and student accounts didn’t even need an email. Multiple YWP users confirmed that they had used this to gain access to private messages, as the classrooms have a PM feature while the forums did not. On top of this, it was confirmed by a moderator that classrooms are basically unmoderated:
> it's almost impossible to moderate these. There was a rash a few years back of the kids themselves making classrooms and the only way I could track them was to manually go through the admin panel and look for the most recent ones and click. They're almost entirely disconnected from the moderation tools and are completely unmoderated unless someone in one reports something. I actually gave up even trying to patrol the classrooms in any form because there's too many and the admin tools suck.
And on the forums themselves, it only got worse. The moderation often ignored its users, and when they intervened, the intervention often worsened the situation. This got to the point that in August 2022, a group of users held a [strike](https://speak-out.carrd.co/) against the moderation due to neglect and incompetence. However, the problems only continued to grow, and in December 2022, there was a incident of a user faking a disorder and, when called out on it, sending death threats. This user also made accounts in order to impersonate and harass users on the sites. It was not uncommon for users to run others off the site, which, justified or not, was often fueled by lack of mod intervention.
This came to a head in October 2023, when a predator was found and the moderation response was once again inadequate. On the 1st of October, moderation was privately contacted by a group of YWP users about a predator that had been on the forums for two years. After three days with no response and no action taken, the group took the information public and a mass flagging campaign began in order to gain the attention of the mods. And five hours after it began, a response was finally posted by the YWP lead:
> Ні,
Thanks for writing to us with your concerns, and for being so thorough keeping track of the places that made you uncomfortable.
> First of all, I want to say: good on you for following your gut. If you ever run into something online that makes you feel scared or worried or unsafe or just seems a little bit off, it's always okay to back away. Trust yourself, and don't do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter who is asking you.
> The other moderators and I looked (and are continuing to look) more into this person, and from what we can tell, it seems like they are who they say they are. Nothing in their posts crosses the lines set by our Codes of Conduct (though they do come right up to the line sometimes). Like I said before, you can absolutely draw a boundary and not interact with them anymore. It just means we can't take any action on site besides marking their profile such that we pay extra attention to their posts, as well as the other account you flagged as a potential alt.
> If we notice anything in the future we can follow up on it more directly.
> Thank you for being so passionate and thorough about trying to make sure the YWP forums are a safe space, and let me know if you have any questions or want to talk anything through more.
This response was torn apart by the users, and 12 hours later people noticed that the threads the predator created had been taken down. However, there was no comment in the public moderation thread on the situation, and the users had no idea whether the account had been banned or not. This caused a mass panic, and several users pulled back or left the platform due to safety concerns.
Early on the 6th of October, a user tried to goad the moderators into responding to the mess by posting a message to the mods in the official announcements forum, which was supposed to be mod-only:
> There is always an explosion of newbies in November, and you have children as young as 13 here. And your inaction is making the site dangerous. We are being forced to defend ourselves against something we should not be dealing with because you can't be bothered.
> This is more than inaction. This is dangerous incompetence. And don't respond to this with another 'we'll do better' apology, because they never last. I've seen this cycle too many times. Tell us that he's gone, that we don't have to worry about him, and tell us what you're doing to make sure this doesn't happen again. And stop forcing children to be the adults in your place.
However, this post remained up for around 12 hours. At that point, the moderation decided to close the forums for a week, giving the users only a day’s notice. And when they reopened, they threatened to make the forums for writing topics only. Although they walked this back due to user pressure and claimed it was due lack of staff, it came off to some users as a punishment for complaining.
There were more incidents over the next month, and these were mentioned in the retrospective thread, which came as a complete shock to the adults, who had been told that a large part of the funding was going to the YWP. Some began to call for the moderators to resign:
> I sincerely hope they are all drafting their resignation letters. we won’t even give them grief this time for writing it together and recycling the same wording.
> they had their chance to listen to their users, to develop action plans and timeline and to publicly respond. they chose not to do that and knowingly let abuse and harm continue on their watches. both here and on ywp.
> resign or get fired. either way this is no longer their house, they are being evicted.
**The Nanopocalypse.**
The Nanowrimo Board intervened in the evening of the 12th of the November, having been contacted by users in the retrospective thread. They immediately set the main forums to read only barring threads they made to discuss the many issues. However the YWP forums were not immediately closed, and so the users from the retrospective reported back on RTAE.
Two hours after the main forums were closed, a YWP user received a message from the Director of Programs threatening to ban the user. Moments later this user and two others were temporarily banned from the forums. And the forums exploded on both sides. On the main forums:
> Do something for these YWP kids being banned for speaking up about their abuse.
And on the YWP:
> no cause if you're so threatened by MINORS joking at your expense take a good long look in the mirror
The same user on commented on the main thread:
> Just so yall know, the ywp is honestly going to hell rn. People are getting banned, some of the people who talked to you yesterday got banned for saying enough. I got warnings for saying that adults shouldn’t be threatened by teens making jokes. It’s a really bad situation and a lot of people are stressed and overwhelmed
One user commented on how bad the YWP had gotten as follows:
>FOR REAL !!! i joined when i was 16?? THE FIRST FUCKING THING I DID WAS MODERATE. i had to skip the classic nano ywp cringe newbie stage because i had to swoop into an argument that was obvious a moderator wasn’t going to ever deal with. and i did that for like the year and a half i was on nano. and like i don’t give a shit in the sense it doesn’t hold a candle to being 14 and moderating for three years straight but. the amount of power hierarchies the ywp has because of us who. play mod. it’s stressful and not fun and i would not wish it upon my worst enemies. this might be petty but? i’d pay real money that none of the staff team remembers me despite me doing their jobs since the moment i clicked create account
> i have not seen a single case of
someone getting fairly banned, nor of someone problematic and upsetting having consequences for their
actions.
>nano is a weird place because a lot of shit happened offsite (ex; my connection to [redacted]. the nanoer who was lying and trauma dumping to me and some of my close friends. that all happened in “adult nano” dms. but we were open about it. and even with multiple call-out posts in places with chats that don’t bury posts often and theoretically ones mods should be checking? nothing was done.) but the guessing game on when mods finally arrive to a scene is awful. the brace for impact everyone collectively did when
someone finally showed up? was awful. these are teenagers. and when these teens can’t trust the moderators who’re supposed to be monitoring their website, who are they supposed to trust?
A few hours into the board thread, YWP users called out one of the accounts on the main forum for being a predator. The group confirmed that this person had been removed from the YWP but that they had been allowed to remain on the main site. Users confronted this account directly:
> correct me if i’m wrong (i’m not) but i do remember you being one of (if not the most) manipulative, spiteful, maliciously incompetent people i have ever encountered. do you, perchance, remember all the times you told that little 15 year old the sexual things you wanted to do to her? i remember. i remember everything you said. i might not be able to prove all of it but we know. we didn’t forget. playing dumb won’t save you now, boy.
> don’t you dare sit here and pretend this was an okay thing for you to do. you got suspended but you’re still here talking aren’t you ?? it’s two years old we still have the very same predator (most people active in the lounge in the last year or two [in the ywp] knows you. no one who knows you likes you.) roaming the adult site. how is this not an issue that needs to be addressed?
The account was suspended a few days later.
That night, the board confirmed that they were unaware that the YWP was a separate site, and the YWP forums were shut. With no read only mode on the YWP, it erupted into chaos. Users said their goodbyes, and some expressed their anger with the moderation for how they turned out. This led to the Director of Programs threatening to close the forums early, despite the users only having a few hours to say goodbye anyway. One user put it as simply as:
> me when my entire community of the last three years is being ripped away lol
And the last three posts?
> FUCK THE MODS FR
> im gonna miss this website so much. love you all and its not our fault this is happening, it’s the mods stay safe stay amazing and love you all, youre the best.
> Im so sorry the mods destroyed this. hate that we have to lose this beautiful thing because of them. I have one last
thing to say:
>FUCK. THE. MODS.
> Imao
And with that, the weekend from hell was over.
But the Nanopocalypse had barely begun.
**It wasn't just kids that were abused.**
The board threads went down a few rabbit holes, but it was a testimony on the 28th of November that started the next fire. This came from an ML, and spoke of a situation a decade before.
> In 2012 (might have been 2011) I had an adult participant explain the explicit omegaverse erotica that she was writing to a 14 year old. She then left her laptop open to go and get a drink, with the instruction “i’m not telling you to read it, but I’m not not telling you that, and if I just leave my laptop open and you happen to see it, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”
> The teenager approached me before NaNo the next year and told me about this. She said that it made her extremely uncomfortable and that the adult participant had spent a lot of time telling her how clever she (the teen) was, how she was more mature than other teens, and how other adults just didn’t understand. Which is all classic grooming. The teen asked if this person was going to be at events that year, because she didn’t want to see her again.
> I contacted HQ with this, and asked if they would back me up if I told this person that they were no longer welcome at our events.
> The response I got was that not only would they not back me up, I was not allowed to ban this person from our events because they had to be held in a public space and be open to anyone who wanted to come and write.
> the teenager never came to another in-person event.
> The adult in question came back, and that year groomed and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old who she met at our events. I didn’t learn about this until several months afterwards. I once again contacted HQ, and was told that I still couldn’t ask her to stay away from our region because the incident took place after our event and we weren’t allowed to ban people based on behaviour outside the scope of our events
>I then posed the question: If the abusive ex of one of our wrimos turned up at an event, with the apparent intent to write with us, could I ask them to leave?
> Once again the answer was no, unless there was evidence of a police report, or the ex became abusive during the event. It was heavily implied that the victim ought to leave if they were uncomfortable.
> I had no training in how to handle this kind of thing, and I received the opposite of support.
> Having heard stories from other MLs I am convinced that the only reason I was not removed from the position is that I chose not to fight them.
The ML spoke more about trainings regarding racism.
>It’s been videos (I think 2 were workshops, but they were only run in US timezones so the rest of us just had to watch the videos and read transcripts) which have so far been exclusively on a US-centric approach to race and racism. One of the first 2 was run by a white person with a… questionable background… And [Director of Community Engagement]’s response to that being raised as an issue boiled down to “we have some MLs who won’t listen if it’s a black person”. Honestly, if you can’t handle being taught about racial issues by a person of that race, maybe you shouldn’t be in a position of power?
> We have the ML Agreement (which, until very recently, forbade MLs from criticising NaNoWriMo in any way. So recently that [Director of Community Engagement] used that clause to remove at least one ML in the last year without knowing/remembering that they took that out).
The discussion quickly pivoted to the treatment of MLs, and to the ML discord server. This was considered unofficial, but needed to get in touch with the Director of Community Engagement, who oversaw the MLs. The user who broke the news about Mod X gave a summary of the problems there:
> A ML was banned from the ML discord for suspicion of "leaking information shared in the ML discord with non-MLs".
> I've seen the (frankly a bit baffling) accusation by MLs (both on and off the main discord) that I have ulterior motives in bringing light to the issues facing the NaNoWriMo organization, so I'll reiterate - again - that l'm only one of a very large group of users over multiple offsite platforms who have been documenting these issues.
> The only reason I'm fairly visible in this situation is because it was decided my twitter platform was the best chance to bring wider attention to the issues in a way HQ would listen to (since efforts here on the forums were being shut down, silenced or obfuscated). I want to note that it's extremely concerning that the default in the ML discord is to focus on "someone leaking information or sneaking into our server" rather than address the systemic problems that have led to so many MLs feeling like they need to seek outside help for their treatment by the ML community. Not to mention the harm of indulging that paranoia when energy would be better focused on strategies to address the crisis facing the NaNo community.
> The main ML discord has obtained a list of users on NaNoWriMo discord servers that allow open criticism of HQ, and is kicking any ML who appears on the member list of the dissenting servers.
However, it seems that only two MLs were kicked for being in a dissenting server.
The kicked ML explained:
> I was kicked out for supposedly sharing screenshots from the ML discord with other people. I only know this, because when I said "hey, I can't find the ml discord any more" another ML went 'holy shit, that was you?' and told me what was being said about me.
> They also told me that what I had supposedly done was not against the rules at the time. [server admin] changed the rules after she kicked me out for "breaking" them.
There was another ML testimony that deserves its own section and we’ll get to in a second, but a response to it brought a new and horrifying light on the actions of the Director of Community Engagement.
> I’ve mentioned I was co-ML 2018, 2019, and 2020. My region had no ML for 2021 because my previous co-ML and I protested how [Director of Community Engagement] treated me.
> So. I am autistic as fuck. I am also physically disabled, and legally blind. We were promised access to the new 2019 forums months before NaNo, since we were MLs.
> I got access two weeks before NaNo.
> Two weeks, for my blind, autistic ass to figure out these very non-intuitive forums before time to kick things off.
> Clearly, this was not really a possibility for me. Because, again, autistic and blind.
> So my co-ML and I decided that I would handle all the online-but-offsite things (Facebook and the discord server I’d set up the year before) while he handled in-person and on-site things. This worked out great for us; our region was well taken care of between the two of us.
> I put so much love and care into my region’s discord server when I created it in 2018 (I had unexpectedly moved a few hours from my region in October, so the three of us co-MLs for that year worked out together what I would do to still hold my end of things up). I was cheering people on on the daily, running daily virtual write-ins for anyone who wanted to pop in and write with me. Any time my co-ML had a physical write-in, I scheduled a virtual one for the same time for anyone who couldn’t go in person
for whatever reason, and a co-ML would connect on their device so that the in-person and the virtual participants could talk to each other before time to write. For the 16th, I scheduled a full 24 hours virtual write-in that people could pop in and out of as they wanted to try to double up their word counts (I ran it the full 24 hours myself and then went to bed afterwards). I was even able to run some of the virtual write-ins from the hospital. I had so many people thank me for it, because they lived too far to make it in person easily, or they worked nights, or they were disabled, or they were immunocompromised so couldn’t go in person.
> Since that worked so well, I also did it for 2019, except even more because I loved my region and I love my people. I love cheering people on. I love helping them figure out a sticky problem in their project. I love just celebrating that they wrote, whether they wrote a full 50k or not, they tried this impossible thing and they did their best and that’s what NaNo is about. I worked my ass off in 2019 to make up for the fact that I couldn’t deal with the new site. Because, once again, I am autistic and blind.
> But also, before I move on to 2020, let’s talk about some of the gaslighting bullshit that HQ fed us. And yes, it was gaslighting I do not use that term lightly.
There was no validator. We were promised there would be a validator. We tell our regions “don’t worry, we’ve been promised there’ll be a validator, it should be ready in a few days”. Then HQ says “oh, sorry, it’ll be a little longer, you’ll have it by the end of the month, though, we super promise”. So we tell our regions, “sorry, it’s not going to be a couple days but they promise we’ll have it by the end of the month”. HQ was still telling us to tell our regions that the validator would be there by the end of the month even after HQ had decided there would be no fucking validator, not even by the end of the month, just never. When we were like “the fuck??? why would you tell us this, then???” we were told that we had just misunderstood what they meant. Gaslighting. That is actual fucking gaslighting.
> So now let’s go to 2020. Two successful years running my Region’s discord - and we added a Whole [country] discord, too! Go us!!!
> I re-apply to co-ML again. Don’t hear anything, assume that I didn’t hear anything because I was approved. In May, Sarah posts in the ML Facebook that if we re-applied and didn’t get an email from her to email her and let her know. So I emailed her. She had forgotten to email me. She had set my application aside because was I sure I could be a good ML since I had barely posted to the site in 2019. The year that the entire site changed and my blind autistic ass could not navigate it. I explained the situation, that I hadn’t been able to navigate the site so my co-ML and I had divvied things up so that I could run all the online-but-offsite things, etc. I told her about the region Discord and all the virtual write-ins.
> [Director of Community Engagement] says that all my efforts the previous years don’t count because it’s not on the site. That off-site can’t be moderated so it’s really discouraged that regions have anything online but offsite. She emailed my co-ML to tell them that she’d find a co-ML that could support them better. My co-ML responded along the lines
of “if you take [ML] away from me, I fucking quit”. So [Director of Community Engagement] tells them that I’m on probation but not to let me know. Which. They did anyway because they’re also one of my best friends and platonic life partners.
> I’m fine now, it’s been three years, I can deal. But when I say that being told that everything I’d set up didn’t count, that broke me. I had worked so hard, literally from the fucking hospital, to be told that it didn’t count. That the thing that I had set up as an accommodation for disabled or immunocompromised didn’t count.
> We MLed for 2020, because we finish our commitments. When 2021 rolled around and no one volunteered to ML, I still took care of my region. I still ran the discord, I still ran the virtual events, I still answered their questions and cheered them on. Because I’m not going to leave my people out to dry even if the person in charge doesn’t care.
> So. That was 2019 and the early parts of 2020. And it’s why I will never ML again while [Director of Community Engagement] is in charge.
> When I volunteered as a moderator, it’s because I genuinely wanted to help the community that I care so
much about. But I volunteered under [Community Manager]. [Community Manager] wasn’t perfect, but [Community Manager] cared. Whatever her
failings, she fucking cared about us. I told [Community Manager] when I disagreed with her, but I did it to her face and I tried to be kind. (Not necessarily nice, but kind. Because kind will tell you when you’re fucking up. Nice will not.)
> Right before NaNo started, I was no longer helping [Community Manager], I was now having to answer to [Director of Community Engagement]. So maybe I was more reactive than I would have been had [Director of Community Engagement] not broken me three years ago. Because of that, I tried to temper my reactions more, to make sure that I was reacting to the actual thing and not to who was saying it.
I have had it confirmed since I quit that [Director of Community Engagement] saw me as a problem and was trying to make me quit. And, well, she succeeded. Because I did quit when [Director of Community Engagement] said that mods would now be silencing any criticism of HQ.
> I love this community, or I would have left in 2020. I love the people, and I love the spirit of NaNo. I love that the spirit of NaNo lives in all of us, that we all have this little flame inside all of us that’s part of the bigger fire. I love that we come together to cheer each other on, and help each other when we’re stuck.
> But fuck the way MLs like me were treated. If I was treated this way, I bet there are others.
As of writing this, the Director of Community Engagement is still in her position and still oversees MLs.
So the MLs had to tolerate ableism and racism to do their jobs. And it only got worse. Let’s go back to that other testimony, which revealed:
**That time HQ made a game with a terrorist in it.**
Yep.
> In 2017 the staff decided to roll out an in-office game they had apparently played amongst themselves to the wider public.
> This game was a treasure hunt type activity, where one had to stop a terrorist called Ivan the Icy from blowing up NaNo and the world.
> This hunt included a now removed video of a very convincingly dressed man monologue at the camera about how he was going to bomb NaNo. So convincing in fact it took very long into the video before signs of it being fake emerged.
> Several faked emails sent to you, in that same vein that eventually led to a hidden page on the site where you had to disarm a bomb. Failing to do so would make it explode. Granted, upon exploding it filled your screen with penguins, but until then it was far too realistic.
> This was not communicated to MLs prior to sending out. Nothing had been mentioned. If it had we could have told them why this was a bad idea. The game might work in office where everyone knows each other’s sensitivities and humour (although even then one can wonder why this topic), but on a global scale this is tone deaf at best.
> MLs were the ones who raised the alarm and contacted HQ as quickly as we noticed. We had to explain in detail the potential ramifications, after which action was taken. We then helped NaNo cover this up.
> Note that at this point we had already lost so much faith in HQ that we were actively brainstorming how we could potentially flag it to youtube and facebook to get the video taken down if HQ would not respond to us as they often didn’t.
> To explain just how tone deaf this game was. The very convincing video was posted (not used) on 9/11. This was the year after the bombing in Brussels during NaNo. Two years after the bombing and shootings in Paris that had the Parisian Wrimos stuck in a write-in near the bomb site and active shooters for hours. And the same year a bomb had been detonated in the Manchester arena.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, a user who was on the YWP at the time confirmed that there was a YWP element:
> I didn’t find out that this came up in conversation yesterday until today but I feel like I need to add that the YWP had a dedicated forum thread to Ivan the Icy and was encouraged to participate and solve the terrorism scavenger hunt
> Yeah the terrorism scavenger hunt was a whole thing. I couldn’t even solve it because it was so heavily locked behind Facebook so I didn’t find out the full implications until the “apology” was sent out, but we on the YWP had an entire forum thread created by the mods (I want to say [YWP lead]) dedicated to solving it
So. That was a thing. Moving on.
**The board drank HQ’s kool-aid.**
The board was originally relatively helpful when they first intervened, but things soon took a turn. They took a break over American Thanksgiving [20th-26th November], and the responses soured following the break. The first clue of this was their defensive attitude towards the Executive Director’s $128K salary, when users figured out that since Nanowrimo ran a ‘salary first, operating budget second’ model, the operating budget was around $88K.
However, it was a comment about what Nanowrimo meant to the board member replying that started the anti-board attitude:
> Until two weeks ago, I had never used the forums; they just aren’t my thing. I mention all of this to say that not everybody who is part of this community hinges their experience, sense of belonging, or sense of value for NaNoWriMo on the forums. Part of my love for/experience of NaNo was doing a weekend writing retreat every November. I have very fond memories of these the years I did them. NaNo takes different forms for different people.
And when questioned about how this came across from an economic perspective, the elaboration was as follows:
> I am going on a writing retreat this weekend with my regular crew. It involves renting an AirBnB and each of us paying $200-$300 plus preparing one meal during the course of the weekend.
The fact that the first thing given as what nano meant to the board was a $200 writing retreat came off as inconsiderate in part due to reasons I’ll discuss later.
The next red flag was a reply in response to the idea having staff credentials in their account bios:
> Frankly, this isn’t a huge priority given that we’re asking staff to focus on other issues and since it’s pretty easy to look people up on LinkedIn. In a previous thread, someone posted the LinkedIn profiles of staffers.
> Again, we don’t view ourselves as concealing this information. Our staff bios are pretty standard and this information is available online.
However, users quickly pointed out that since the board member used their pen name, they couldn’t find their LinkedIn.
A few comments in a question and answer thread were also received poorly:
> The Board recognizes that people want answers now. After all, THEY ARE SHOUTING AT US IN ALL CAPS.
> We get that people ARE UPSET but we can’t do much about unrealistic expectations.
However, it was one of their last responses that really cemented their downfall:
> That is not what [other user] said. Please answer the actual question that was asked.
> And get better at reading comprehension, christ.
> Thank you for proving why the forums are so hard to moderate and for giving the Board reason to consider that we might never be able to make them safe. Because how can anybody feel safe when confronted with vicious sarcasm after committing the utterly human fallibility of misreading?
The board stopped responding that weekend and closed the remaining threads on the 4th of December.
Well. Almost all of them. A few hours later users noticed that the ‘about the Nanowrimo board category’ thread wasn’t locked. Users scrambled to post a final goodbye to the forums in a similar manner to the YWP shutdown a few weeks before.
> It has been an honour being in the trenches with so many of you. I’m sorry that it’s coming down to this, but here is where we are.
> So many of us did not deserve the way we were treated. So many of us were failed by a staff that should have done better.
> And I will never NOT be angry that protecting [Mod X] was more important than protecting children.
And with the battlefield closed, everyone retreated to their discords to discuss.
**The donation begging.**
Despite making between $1-$2 million a year, Nanowrimo always seemed desperate for more money. The first sign of this was the aforementioned Inkitt donor situation, but the second was ‘double-up donation weekend’, where donors got twice as much goodies for donating. This was during the 4th and 5th of November, and while the actual number of emails sent is disputed, one user simply said:
> too fucking many
However it was probably between 8-11. Over two days. And people have alleged that they sent more in other days.
Graphics from a recent presentation also revealed that they were trying to solicit donations from people in poverty. The graphic said to donate less if
> * Love NaNoWriMo and want to support us alongside 8,000 annual community donors!
> * Have little to no savings
> * Work more than one job to meet your basic needs
> * Have dependents (children, elderly loved ones, household partners, neighbors, etc.)
Another graphic suggested that people making $12K a year should donate $300 a year.
However, it was revealed after the forums were shut that Nanowrimo had been soliciting donations from users of the YWP since 2016, and that it had been a regular thing since 2018. And only once did they add a disclaimer:
> P.S. Today is #Giving Tuesday, and this year NaNoWriMo has received a $20,000 matching donation. So if you know someone who might want to support our organization, encourage them to donate today and double their impact!
The emails did in fact link to the Nanowrimo store.
**And then the memes attacked.**
When the forums were shut on December 4th, the some regional forums ran by MLs were allowed to remain. However, around the 11th of December, a lifeboat group received intel that the regional forums were soon to close. The day following, there was a rush of posts in the regional forums from members of this group alerting regional members of this. There were also allegations that the Director of Community Engagement had her own reasons for shutting the forums down.
> The decision to close the regional forums over the holidays was indisputably an "oh fuck" maneuver. It was NOT to shield MLs from emergency situations that they wouldn't be able to handle in Sarah's absence. It was NOT out of concern for the MLs.
> And I have proof.
> On November 30th, [Director of Community Engagement] reached out to the MLs who had chosen to keep their forums open. She asked if we still wanted to keep them open. **And she presented us with the following additional options:**
> * 1) Set it to "only MLs can start threads"
> * **2) Set it to "only MLs can post" (i.e. use it only for announcements or record keeping)**
> * 3) Set some or all existing open threads to "slow mode" so they can't be posted in as frequently
> * 4) Close some or all of the existing open threads
> **Option 2 would have eliminated this concern entirely.** My region is set to Announcements-only right now. No one else can post there. So, unless the MLs themselves were the concern, there would have been no need to close the forums *entirely*.
> Except... some MLs *are* giving HQ the migraine of their lives. **They need to silence ALL dissident voices, including those of MLs.**
> Hopefully you can view the form [Director of Community Engagement] sent MLs on November 30th here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTbrRNrhfFV6HoXVUMWghomicP7xzvqWdLxC-R6cJ7Q8pfFA/viewform
And one member put it as:
> At this point I'm so confused, but what I see is HQ continuing to fuck up.
On the eve of the 15th of December, as the regional forums were taken down, the group discovered a thread on a regional forum, dedicated to memes about the Nanowrimo challenge. They flooded it with anti-HQ memes, in a last middle finger to HQ. A large amount of the memes consisted of promotional pictures of staff with humorous captions, such as The Good Place quote ‘I took the form of a 45 year old white man for a reason. I can only fail up.’, with the Executive Director photoshopped on. However, there was one that was purely text, from a YWP member:
> she nano on my wrimo till i shut down the forums
As the memes winded down, users settled in for a night of watching the forums go down. It was a long night, with users posting haikus to pass the time.
> Just a reminder
> The forums will shut down soon
> Save the threads you want
>Save the threads. You want
> Community, but darkness
>Prevails. Just for now.
However, some forums were never closed and are still open to this day.
**The smouldering remains.**
The entire YWP staff has gone, as has the social media manager. The Executive Director has been ‘demoted’ to Financial Stewardship Director. The current Executive Director is the board member that works under a pen name.
Nanowrimo has yet to reopen the forums, and besides disabling the ability to self-identify as an educator on the YWP, have yet to implement any of the changes that they promised.
More information can be found at r/nanowrimo, which is an unofficial Nano group without staff involvement.
#nanowrimo controversy#antinanowrimo#nano#nanopocalypse#nanowrimo#so fuck nanowrimo#Fuck this got long#Hobby drama
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Hello, Andrew here. This blog article was sent to me and I can assure you that this is not correct information but a reaction likely of those who were involved. This information likely stems from previous MoM or HM themselves, I guess, seeing that they have been banned properly recently (which I am only stating because you already stated it yourself, otherwise I would not give away who is or is not banned)
When I took over I made it very clear in an NB post that the harrassment of users, witch hunt on site, and generally toxic and disrespectful behaviour needs to stop. Everyone is more than welcome to share opinions, but this was not that, this was simply insanely rude behaviour that was based on wrong information given by the MoM/HM to the other leaders of WoP, who then compiled their letter. Which is also the reason why after all of this these other site leaders were put back into their positions after everything was cleared up.
I have banned a total of 4 people from 800-900 actives at the time for continuing their disrespectful behaviour and outright slandering (one of them later on) despite my very clear warning in the article (I was surprised that it was only so few, but almost everyone was just glad to be able to enjoy the website again). I also made an effort to respond to each single comment transparently and open minded. Many of the people who removed content or joined that group hype have talked to me, told me their opinions, and gave me the opportunity to work on their missing trust together. I am on good terms with almost all of the old staff with maybe 5 exceptions (MoM, HM for being the reason this went down and one old staff on bad terms; the other two people I am neutral towards as I never spoke with them and don't know their thoughts) Every old staff member who reached out to me has their own experiences and opinioms and don't always agree with me, but they are more than valued and often play important roles in our staff as well - whether student or grad. In fact, I really enjoyed every single talk with them and appreciate anyone who reached out despite their fear of rejection, as that takes a lot of courage
The old MoM and HM were banned later on, yes, you can feel free to ask them for the exact reason I put in. The previous behaviour of theirs is unwelcome on site, and they created a horrible environment for people at the time this happened, just because of a "money grabbing" feature that was completely changed back anyway for other reasons. One of them was still logging in on alt for reasons I don't really understand, because they made sure everyone knew their hate towards Dan and the site. So why log in almost regularly even after almost a year? I guess I know why ,but that is just an assumption, so I will not voice it here
Aside from that, if you paid attention to the site development, you would also see that since then (but not because of that), new users got free VIP, people with jobs get discount, linking accounts gets a whole 50% discount, and such
I am mostly replying to clear some things up because I don't enjoy reactions that are based on false facts. I wanted to stay on WoP US as a temporary solution, but the community has been loving and welcoming, which was really unexpected considering the circumstances they went through
This is something that happened almost a whole year ago now, I even unbanned one of the 4 bans that took place when I took over, so technically it is only 3
I hope that this could clear up confusion and misunderstanding. I would like to see this message public because I am mostly writing it for the very few that might end up seeing it. Considering the nature of this post, you already made up your mind about me and that is okay. But I want to give my insight first hand, as I don't enjoy someone trying to slander my name based on more accusations of those people who were banned for false accusations in the first place
Magical regards,
Andrew Sutherland (WoP US)
By the way, I am only asking this anonymously because of privacy concerns regarding this account (never use Tumblr anyway)
Added in a later message:
"Andrew here again, please add this xD I saw that you have made clarifications regarding there possibly being more to these accusations, my response was mainly aimed towards the person asking the question, but I do admit that I thought that that message was originally from you, the blog writer, and only saw your response later on (I am not used to tumblr and on phone it doesnt show all on one screen, oops). Just wanted to clarify that as it may explain some wording of mine!"
No hard feelings on my side, thanks for the clarification! If I can share both sides of the story, that is what I want to do and you've allowed me to share yours. It's greatly appreciated and I hope this clears the air a little bit.
NOTE: I can't verify if this person is who they say they are, the anonymous submissions are anonymous to me as well. I have no reason to doubt or suspect that it's someone else writing in their name, but I want to note that with anonymity there is a risk of abuse and impersonation. I don't think that's the case here though.
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A few months ago, this tumblr account was banned. Not only was I unable to log in, but my friends couldn't see that the blog had ever existed. This was around when a lot of trans girls were posting about how their innocent pictures were marked as explicit, how they'd gotten banned, etc.
It took a few months for tumblr to say something along the lines of "oh, sorry - here's your account back!", with no explanation of why I'd been banned in the first place. Here's the post I made when I got unbanned: https://sadlynotsappho.tumblr.com/post/728298736442359808/where-ive-been-for-the-past-few-weeks
Recently, a popular tumblr user got banned, seemingly for the same reason I did: being transfemme. Here's their post (from an alt) about it that I reblogged: https://www.tumblr.com/sadlynotsappho/742642966405021696
This is all to say that this website not only isn't getting better, it's getting worse. Feature-wise, I understand all of the people saying "oh, tumblr is the best social media site, not because it's gotten better, but because everything else has gotten worse". What those people are ignoring is the recent hell that this site puts trans girls through.
This is all to say that I'm not coming back after this post. Thanks, @staff! You're somehow worse than my bio teacher, and my school's tech support team (who took six months to tell me "we care about your privacy that's why we're forcing you to use only google products")
I'll ping some of my mutuals so that y'all see this, I know my original posts don't get nearly as many notes as funny shit that I reblog. If any of you want to contact me, I'm @sadlynotsappho on Discord, and @sadlynotsappho:catgirl.cloud on matrix. I'd prefer if you contacted me on matrix (https://joinmatrix.org/guide/matrix-vs-discord/), but feel free to use Discord.
@pugswithlasers @bloodsoaked-rainbows @sandiwchirlinreal @eggothesquirrel @insane-bad-idea-person @elios-zosimos-bandy
Goodbye, tumblr. You were fun while you lasted.
#tumblr#trans#transfem#transfemme#transphobia#i'd put something funny in the tags but there's no way i can think of anything good enough to go in the tags of this post.
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A check in or sorts.
Sorry this is coming in so late, I saw dune part 2 early this morning before starting my sunday reset and it's been busy. Keeping everything clean is definitely helping with my mindset and go figure I actually feel alot more balanced now that my place isn't in complete chaos all the time.
So I go to the gym Monday through Friday. I go first thing after work so I never really feel like i have time to talk myself out of it. It's brutal, it's killing me, and I love it. What I don't love is the making sure I'm eating at home every night, honestly I've always hated cooking for myself and now making sure I'm eating correct portions and eating something moderately healthy sucks. That being said I've tried alot of new recipes lately.
I officially started on my ics2 cyber security certification. I made it through my first test and got 89%. 75 questions, so I'm somewhat proud of myself. I'll be happy when this is finished. Spanish is really kicking my ass as well, memorizing the words isn't so much a problem as the conantation for who im talking to that changes the words. I wish I was better at this.
Girly and I are not talking right now, and I honestly don't blame her. If the reflection has taught me anything it's that I've been fucking up I didnt just make a single mistake. I acted like a petulant child for a lot of things including finding out she had mixed thoughts on us. leading with your emotions is never the correct way to go, they will take you on a ride to a place you didn't want to be. Whenever we do talk again I have a lot to make up for.
Work sucks. However this week we had a work event which we haven't had since 2019 and I got to finally try axe throwing. It took awhile to figure out how to throw correctly but once I did I was a natural. I really enjoyed it. I've stopped applying for positions until I finish the first certification at the minimum. I think I'll get something great after I have a position or two under my belt.
Therapy really is a pain and my therapist may also be retiring soon so I guess I'll be back on the market for another. I'm not exactly happy about this because I just feel like I got most of the introductions out of the way and I haven't seen this much progress in myself in a long time however there isn't much to be done.
Overall I think I'm doing good. Somedays are easier than others and I miss the hell out of her everyday. I'm happy my blog is finally unbanned and it's been nice to have something to focus on. Sorry this one isn't as organized as it could be. I'll admit to slightly rushing so I can focus on some self appointed homework.
Oh one more thing fuck the time change.
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I once got shadowbanned simultaneously with several people and we were all unbanned at the same time, two of us sent tickets at a different time, and another I don’t even know if did at all. It seems there is actually a set time and the “glitch” (what they tell you in the response email when they unban you) isn’t the only part they’re lying about.
uhh sorry i didnt mean to mislead anyone. "shadowbanning" is a glitch/bug thats very common on large scale database websites/softwares. im just using the term to refer to my issue cause its an easy shorthand (for this blog specifically not appearing in tags or notifications) but thats my bad.
as much as i hate tumblr as a company they're pretty transparent that this is a known technical issue. also, per your experience, when bugs/glitches are addressed they usually do affect a large scale of users regardless of whether they have an open ticket or not. but coders often aren't aware of ongoing bugs or issues until someone brings it to their attention in the first place (e.g., a small fraction of affected users submitting help tickets for what is ultimately the same batch of bugs)
#tldr i promise that this thing in particular is not a secret evil function its actually a very normal coding thing#revan-shira
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Thank you both for your support, but i doubt that it will be lifted, bc i can't contact @support from this blog, i have written them several times already as well and when i contacted them from my other blog this is what i got: "Thanks for reaching out. We noticed you aren’t writing us from the email address associated with your Tumblr account. For the security of your account, can you send us a new message about this issue from your registered email address? That’ll help us keep your account safe." I mean i literally said that i'm writing from another acc, bc i can't write from this one and i got that "you're writing from another email" in response. I made a screenshot of my "associated email adress" and send it back with more explanations, also asking how is it relevant to "my account security" i mean it's not like i'm asking for passwords or anything, literally asking to unban an account! And i did send an email from that adress this blog registered to, as asked, that was on friday, i can only hope they'll get to reading that on monday, if it even reached them. If i'll hear nothing till wednesday i'll try sending support ticket from other acc one last time, after that i'm done hitting walls with this bullshit. But they won't just magically unban me by themselves. I also recently seen a person say that they unbanned them after two years with lame "sorry our mistake" excuse. I'm sure they're not the only one and even could be considered lucky, bc apparently there's a lot of ppl shadowbanned here and they don't even know that they are and smthn is wrong 😑
As for suit, May, first i know someone's having a birthday soon, second i like it too! So consider it done! 🥳 Shoe ideas? Mb some sneakers considering the undershirt is informal? Ages? Shit, it also has 56 swatches haha, i am actually learning to limit myself with them, like we discussed, so name your faves mb? Also, considering first point feel free to suggest more stuff without any of the limits on that post of mine, a wishlist, you know. Drop me an ask here or write a message to that other acc of mine, i might have to move there for messaging at the end of this week it seems ☹️
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November 2022 Wrapup
New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: November 2022 Wrapup
Intro paragraph! Probably too short! I have had a hard time writing this month!
First up we have the Game Pile articles:
Bart Vs The Space Mutants (in video form!)
City of Heroes Page 5
The Disney Animated Canonball Tier List
Straight Outta Tucson
Story Pile articles:
Air America
The Bear
The Engine of a Million Plots
The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated
There are other articles and honestly I think a bunch of them are great but I can’t really bring myself to look back on them. Truth be told I think this month, I can keenly feel the way that a lot of things that were functioning had to slow, that word counts crept down and that important things were made less important because of other, competing demands.
There were shirt posts, and you can go for more detail there.
This is also the first full month since Elon Musk took over a section of what I considered to be my personal public square and shit all over the floor. The day I write this, I know that he had just unbanned a number of actual nazis and banned a number of antifascist organisers, as well as banned people for things that definitely just look like they’re being annoyed with a thin-skinned billionaire being a turd. That means that rather than having a space to chill out, hang out, do cool things and goof off, a large portion of this month has been about watching a canary in a cage and wondering to myself if oh no, I really should probably be getting out of here.
I wrote my new bio today, for the first time since I started using Twitter seriously in around 2015. It looks like this:
Cis Male, White, Bi, He/Him
http://press.invincible.ink
http://cohost.org/TalenLee
http://kind.social/@Talen_Lee
http://youtube.com/talenLee
Get out, stay safe, reach out.
I don’t think Twitter is going to get a clean death and I don’t think I’m going to ‘stop’ on twitter per se. If nothing else, I gotta make it to next year. But it is not a safe place to post anything that inv0olves talking to people, and it is 100% just there to release links to my blog posts and to finish posting Magic: the Gathering cards on my secondary account. I need to stay there if my work asks me to but otherwise, I really think, today, that I’m going to have to start writing up some official protocls about Not Using Twitter in the name of just safety.
In the diary, I got a haircut. It’s the first time I remember getting a haircut since the start of the pandemic. I handed in marks. I got through a chunk of methodology writing in the PhD. I watched some fun streams. Desert Bus happened and Fox won a prize. I got to see a thing we made and sent raise a stupid amount of money as a raffle giveaway. I got to hear Jacob Burgess remark about our aesthetic. It hasn’t been a bad month per se, not in and of itself.
It’s just essentially part of me is having to move in a digital sense, and moving house is always stressful.
Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!
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Submissions from Schemes
As per your request I am publishing your submissions, Schemes. There's nothing this blog can do about the actions taken against your account. That was a decision made by staff - not me, or any of the users who posted here. Evidence posted on this blog has never before been used to ban anyone, so we can only logically assume that staff acted on other information. If you would like to explain that situation to us I will publish what you have to say.
My priority is Rescreatu. I'm honestly not that interested in anyone's character. I want to see Rescreatu thrive again. I want justice for the users who have been wrongfully banned. I want it to be a fair playing field, where everyone is held to the same rules and staff are accountable for their actions. I want to help staff restore the faith and trust users need to have in the site in order for it to be successful and fun again.
You have an opportunity here to change the narrative entirely. You could become a hero overnight if you chose to share what you know and expose what has been going on. You would most likely be listened to by Patrick, too, and could change Rescreatu for the better. I know for a fact you would find allies on staff as well, who are looking for someone who will step up and confront these issues. It's not too late and I will be your first ally if you choose to do the right thing.
As a side note, Tumblr does not give me access to the emails used for long submissions. I've also never published anything I've received in a DM without permission. I don't send harassing messages, it's not productive. I invited you to DM the blog because I wanted to give you a chance to discuss this before I posted what you wrote (which I genuinely feel will not give the impression to users that you hope it will).
Without further ado, here is what Schemes (as far as I know) has submitted to the blog, hopefully in order. I will not be compiling any other messages submitted like this in short format (it's too much work - please use the long submission form - I'm not censoring you, I'm just asking you to follow guidelines).
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heyaaaaa to my fans I'll make this perfectly clear, if my tu was taken because of something shady, I would have never publicly spoke about it on the SB and make myself look "bad" where I know everyone clocks my every movement and watches me like a tv show. you know I'm smarter than that atleast I'd hope so! Now that im not staff I can comment on this hate blog but my peace and happiness / mental health is worth more than trying to prove to people who have already decided they dislike me. bye now
PS as per my last post, if I REALLY did something bad EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN WIPED FROM MY ACCOUNT. just saying. and there's no way i would have been unbanned in 1 day. -schemes/khione. now I'm done I promise. And to those who have been defending me, thank you. I really am grateful
Schemes again, few months ago I wrote to you guys, and explained how my mental health was deteriorating and requested the removal of false and personal information about me etc. not sure if you guys did, but here we go again with this, baseless lies and bullying. I tried to [censored] myself over this blog. Now if I sue for emotional trauma I would be wrong right? Bc I have the means, professionals and the proof to do so. please don't say if it bothered so much to ignore the blog it's never that ez
I gave up the achromatic omni amongst other colored galta to try to make people see that I really was moving with geniune intentions. I now realize that was stupid and I should've kept them because y'all got something to say in a bad manner about me anyway. I should just get it back LOL. Not being staff any longer is such a relief I can now actually say stuff I feel
Unfortunately I don't have a tumblr account. If you don't want to post my truth and continue to make me look bad, and allow people to assassinate my character to control the narrative, just say that. Nor am I going to make a tumblr account just for this. Just keep in mind what I said on anon. - Schemes/Khione
I don't need to talk to my friends. My friends know my truth. But here's another truth, you're pathetic and a bully. Karma is real, so it's fine. You don't have to post what I said. I have a clear head, I just don't see why my posts won't be submitted. Why would I post a long submission, so you can have my email and harass me some more? No thanks. Like I said, if this continues I'll be taking legal action. I've been letting the bullying slide for too long. Take that however you want.
Maybe you need a break from this blog. You feed of the bullying of others and drama and the hate. Does it fuel you? I'll pray for you. obviously this is schemes again. I'm sure you'll post this though. Again, bc u want people to think I'm a horrible person. You pick and choose what to post, it's really sad. I think you're the one who needs to take a break from this blog. It's only going to ruin you.
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PS - I will resume posting your submissions this evening or tomorrow when I have time. I wanted to allow some time for everyone to catch up.
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I’ve had this in my drafts for several weeks. I don’t see anyone saying this, so I guess I should:
Owen Wilson didn’t become hot just because of the grey hair. He “became” hot because it was a role you guys finally took him seriously in.
Let me explain:
I’ve been seeing a lot of people on Tumblr saying “Oh my god! Didn’t see the Owen crush coming!”
What’s even worse, is that people, those same people, openly say “I hated him with blond hair but now? He’s so hot!”
Tastes are subjective. It’s completely fine if you prefer grey haired Owen to blond Owen. But saying he was ugly before (which mind you, he isn’t) is just plain rude.
If I came up to you and said “You looked better when (part of you) was different” you’d be upset, wouldn’t you? You’d be upset.
There is a reason Owen isn’t on social media, because of shit like this. It’s one thing to not be a fan of his work, but to say he’s bad, and then appreciate it only after Loki? Blasphemous.
Sure, he’s leaned more towards comedy films, and I agree he should go more into drama. But there will always be some bitch out there who demotes him no matter what he does.
Sure, some of his roles are more “childlike” and comedic, but that’s not an issue. That’s what he likes and he’s made a name for himself. But saying those roles can’t be taken seriously is actually pathetic. Saying he’s only good in one role is pathetic.
I created this blog purely as a joke. I thought, what the hell, since my other blog was shadowbanned, and Tumblr won’t unban it, no matter how many emails I send, I’ll make a whole blog to appreciation Owen, posting pictures, memes and reblogging content about him.
This blog became a hell of a lot more popular than I anticipated. I actually got asks for the first time on this blog. I’d never gotten an ask before. Crazy.
I don’t mind it. I actually really like spreading positivity about him. After seeing the absolute shit show that is Twitter, and the sylki stans calling him a dead beat dad, I’ve been more motivated than ever to keep this up.
I’ll never shame any of you for preferring Owen with grey hair. However, I will shame you for saying he is attractive only with grey hair. He is actually really talented, and honestly, really beautiful. Make jokes all you want about how much you want to get railed by him after the Esquire interview (myself included) but he really is pretty.
I request you watch his work in any Wes Anderson film. He’s able to show off his range there, and the films are really good as standalone films regardless of him being there.
The reason I say this is because he isn’t just some blond himbo who can be stupid with Vince Vaughn. He isn’t just some blond model with Ben Stiller. He has some excellent roles, and was even nominated for an academy award for his screenplay with Wes Anderson.
The fact that some of you place all his value purely in his looks and his personal life is absolutely disgusting. The fact that some of you see Owen as Mobius and nothing else is awful. The fact you put value on him in one role is rude.
I know I won’t get any benefits from posting this rant. I know that. I just get so frustrated seeing some of you say “Wow I thought he was ugly but daaamn that grey hair makes me wish he’d breed me.”
I’ll reiterate: If I told you you were ugly until you changed a part of yourself, and that I wouldn’t like you otherwise, you’d be upset too. So please, let’s keep it respectful across all platforms, yeah?
Another thing I’d like to mention: Why disclaim you finding Owen attractive?
I don’t see anyone disclaiming finding Tom Hiddleston attractive. Why is that?
Are you scared someone is going to judge you? On Tumblr?
So what if you think he’s hot? So what? The fact I even have to bring this up just annoys the hell out of me.
I’ll wrap this up:
To those of you who have been appreciating his work from before Loki:
Thank you.
To those of you who have been making gifs of him from his older films:
Thank you.
For those of you who share the opinion that he’s beautiful no matter what:
Thank you.
To those of you who just think he’s hot with grey hair and think he’s valuable only in the Loki series:
Go fuck yourself.
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FinalDrakenStar deleted thread screenshots(OOC)
Well, I tend to have a habit of taking screenshots of drama before it gets locked/deleted. So, here I am, sitting with my archive of FDS screenshots. Apologies if its a bit late.
I’ll give you a real quick rundown of what happened. I’m trying to sound as neutral as possible here, apologies if I sound cold or indifferent, it’s just how I write.
FinalDrakenStar joined on 22/05/2021 and made a post of himself roleplaying as his dragon. For those of you who don’t know, FinalDrakenStar is this guy: https://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&tab=userpage&id=579128. It created a lot of divide among the Flight Rising community. The thread’s been locked, but not deleted.
The user refused to break character. FinalDrakenStar had a club with a lot of followers as well as a special UMA made just for him. The user had lore in the form of a diary in his dragon’s bio, and judging by the writing he couldn’t have been older than 11 years old, which was obviously too young for FR age restrictions.
The user was banned for “spam” and posted a screenshot of it on the discord they had(I have the link but it’s invalid).
This invoked a lot of outrage among the FR community. A thread was made to unban the account. https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/3031794/1It should be this one, but it has been deleted. I still have screenshots of the thread.
This invoked a lot of outrage among the FR community. A thread was made to unban the account. https://www1.flightrising.com/forums/frd/3031794/1
It should be this one, but it has been deleted.
I still have screenshots of the thread, but not of the first page unfortunately.
I won’t name any names, usernames will be censored.
Some said that they might have been a multi-account or that the “forced” roleplay outside of roleplay-area got them banned.
Alternate theories state that he might have been banned for being under 13
I can tell you that I do not have screenshots of every post on the thread, but I do have some of them.
This was the last post on the thread before it was deleted. ^^^
The FinalDrakenStar club thread is also deleted, although I do have screenshots.
I don’t know what happened next, although https://saltminerising.tumblr.com/ does. I suggest taking a look around their blog.
Just as a side note: I do not have first-hand accounts of this, I was not in the discord so I don’t have screenshots of it. However, I felt that I should include it in my post.
Below is a direct screenshot/quote from @saltminerising
I cannot confirm nor can I deny what happened here with the ban, but I do have screenshots of deleted threads.
With thanks to @saltminerising
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My friend recently got the same tvtropes ask and we did some research and found that many other users have gotten these questions from a similar anon. If you google, there’s someone who had a full conversation with the person and it sounds pretty shady. Tumblr won’t let me embed a link in an ask but I wanted to pass this info along anyway.
yeah this is the thing I found but I’m taking whatever entertainment I can get and also this person has apparently been trying to get a message to the mods from TV Tropes for at least 8 months via anonymous messages to Tumblr blogs. I have so many questions.
Assuming all of what they said in that linked thread was even true, since I would not be emailing the mods, merely PM-ing them through TV Tropes, which this person presumably cannot access due to a permanent ban:
a. I could just lie and say I PM-ed the mods
b. Were I a TV Tropes mod, I’d probably follow up; if no one’s done this yet I’d probably ask “uh this seems really ominous and weird, why are you sending this?” and if someone has attempted this strategy I’d ask "did you get told to do this via Tumblr anon ask?”
c. Also, were I a TV Tropes mod I’d probably have blocked this person’s email and perhaps even their IP address, which I would know from blocking their TV Tropes access, so this person also likely is getting a proxy to email the TV Tropes people as well? Which, at that point, just ask me to email the TV Tropes mods for you. Not to tell you how to attempt to get around a permaban on TV Tropes but like, this seems a very inefficient strategy as witnessed by the fact that this has gone on for at least 8 months.
d. You do have to fuck up pretty bad to get a TV Tropes permaban. You pretty much need to have harassed someone or engaged in general bigotry and hate speech, or at minimum repeatedly edited something and ignored the warnings of multiple other bans.
e. It’s TV Tropes. Like I know there’s a pandemic on (though there was not in September 2019) and we’re all bored and anxious but idk write your opinions in a Google Doc or something. Watch a lot of British Quiz shows on YouTube. Perfect your nachos recipe. Learn to do calligraphy. Get really into yoga. Take a long walk outside with a bandana over your face and feel kind of dystopian and weird but also like a badass cowboy. Release your inhibitions and feel the rain on your skin. Actually maybe don’t release your inhibitions as that might be what got you permabanned from TV Tropes, but you get my drift.
In the spirit of me feeling the Bryn Monroe Math Person representation, once I saw someone get banned from the Art of Problem Solving forum in the early 2000s and the response was a very gentle “you didn’t say anything problematic but you were posting so much and very off topic at that, please find other outlets, we are worried.” One day I hope this person will look back on the day they stopped trying to get unbanned on TV Tropes and got some help with whatever tendencies got them banned in the first place as a pivotal moment in their life for the better. But for now I am kind of gently dragging them because like. the choices they are making are uniquely poorly thought out.
#permabanned from TV Tropes for editing crimes#i am forcibly removed from the TV Tropes forums#etc#Anonymous
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the true story (with receipts)
Let me preface this by saying I didn’t think that I would have to comment on this but since the people who were involved in this (myself included) last night are currently being villainized here goes nothing.
This all started because a pwp fanfiction between Michael and Alex as minors was published a few days ago and promoted in a server that had previously established no underage nsfw content was to be shared. OP (chasingshhadows) was fully aware of the fact that she was writing about two minors engaging in an explicit relationship judging by the last tag on the fic:
And she proceeds to state that this fic fulfils a bunch of her kinks in a self reblog a few hours later.
The fic was self promoted in a discord server (which I’ll refer to as maneschat from now on) and many people - all of which adults in their mid 20′s and mid 30′s - proceeded to talk about how hot the fic was, further engaging in the sexualisation of these minors who are half their age.
Maneschat was not an age restricted server, meaning that there were minors in the chat, and the fic was not sent under the nsfw server, but rather in the fic-recs server where minors have access to it (which you can see in the screenshot below). This is the first breach of the rules that the admins set up, and a blatant breach of discord’s rules. Any nsfw content is not allowed to be shown to anybody under the age of 18 and should be in an age-locked channel if your server is open to all ages.
A few people then proceeded to discuss the fact that there was inappropriate content involving minors in the drama channel - the channel that the admin’s created to keep all discussions that could cause arguments in. That channel was then put on a six hour cooldown - meaning each person could only send one message every six hours except for admins who could type as much as they wanted to. I made a joke in another channel about being silenced (which will become important later).
The admins decided to take some time to review the situation which was fair enough. When a server descends into arguments it is an admin’s job to diffuse these, but admins also have a duty of care to the minors in their discord chats that were completely ignored last night.
Whilst waiting for the admins to resolve the situation (which never happened), a few of us decided to join the voice chat so we could actually talk. That was when Kelli (space-malex) decided to join the voice chat and listen to our conversation, making one of the members uncomfortable. She had previously sent abusive comments their way and when she was asked if she was just going to stay on mute and listen to their conversation, she proceeded to unmute herself and start yelling at and berating a 19 year old (again, Kelli is 35, she was screaming at someone essentially half her age on voice chat).
Kelli has also been repeatedly hostile towards myself and said 19 year old, below are some screenshots of the way she’s treated us:
That last screenshot was regarding an ask that I sent her trying to talk about a biphobic post she made, she replied and was very patronising and as a result of this I got defensive. You can read the entire exchange HERE.
Nothing was done about this blatant bullying behaviour by the admins that claimed to have several rules in place about bullying. That’s rule breach 2.
And then I found myself banned from the server. I reached out to a moderator with my problem - as per the server rules, and received these replies.
I spoke to the owner of the server, Jam (maneswrites), and also got these responses:
This was resolved the first time and I rejoined the chat and went back into the voice call with the others that were in there. We were all kicked out of the voice chat and whole server once - we later found out that a lot of people who were against the idea of explicit works with minors were kicked from the server but those who were fine with it remained in the chat. We rejoined assuming it must have been a glitch or a mistake, but it happened again. When I rejoined again I heard Shay (fiery-red-kryptonite) giggling and asked to stop being kicked. She responded that we had our own chat we could talk in and I informed her that she was breaking the server rules and abusing her powers as an admin of the server. Nevertheless, I was kicked and banned from the group chat again. Once I contacted Jam I received this response:
At this point I was understandably frustrated with the actions of the admins abusing their powers - server admins have a responsibility to keep the server in check and not abuse their powers because they have a personal vendetta against a few individuals, and I know this because I run my own discord servers. I asked several times to be unbanned from the chat and rejoin to discuss things in a civilised manner so we could resolve this and stop it from continuously happening, but the admins did not seem interested.
At this point I gave up on trying to rejoin the server. I was banned for making a joke about slowmode silencing me and agreeing that explicit works with underage kids shouldn’t be sent in that channel.
The arguments carried on for the rest of the night between people who were defending the minors in the chat and the admins who came to an executive decision to shut the server down.
When you admin a discord server you have a position of responsibility that you assume over minors in the chat and according to discord rules, it is your responsibility to protect them from this type of content. In the past there were numerous incidents of underage people visiting the explicit channel and others using explicit language outside of the channel, and this was handled. Why this situation escalated so much is beyond me.
When I went to bed I assumed that would be the end of the situation, but I’m not hearing rumours about a block list that’s been circulating around, hence the reason for this post. I’ve lost a fair few followers from this and I think it’s only fair that people be given a fair and somewhat impartial view of the situation before they decided if they want to block someone (hence why I’ve attached screenshots to this).
If anybody still wants to block me after this then feel free! That’s your prerogative and the block button is there to be used, but it’s not fair of big blogs to make ‘block lists’ without explaining the situation and for their followers to blindly go along with it. My messages and inbox are also open if anybody wants to have a civil discussion about this that I was denied last night.
Several posts emerged today that painted us out as villains who were spreading negativity, when in actual fact we were trying to protect minors in the server that were made to feel uncomfortable.
(RE: that last screenshot. I tried many times to have a civil discussion with the admins but was denied the chance and now I’m being painted as a bad person).
A block list was established with (what I’m assuming is) very little context surrounding the situation. I don’t have much information on this so if somebody does and wants to share then free free!
And that’s basically it. That’s the situation. It could have been very easily resolved if the discord rules were followed but a lot of things got blown out of proportion by a few people.
Like I said, I’m happy to answer any questions! But y’all deserve the full story with proof and evidence and not some half-arsed jumble of excuses with people telling you to block us.
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hc x dsmp
by x-ca1iber (Jazmin_Kom_Skaikru)
“Well... That was pretty easy. Y'know what I said, the day I got unbanned from Hermitcraft? And the day I said I was running? (An election that I won, by the way.) I said things are gonna change. I looked every citizen of Hermitcraft in the eyes and I said 'You listen to me. This place will be a lot different tomorrow.' Let's start making it happen. My first decree, as the mayor of Hermitcraft, the EMPEROR, of this GREAT COUNTRY! IS TO REVOKE! THE CITIZENSHIP! OF MUMBO JUMBO AND GRIAN! GET ‘EM OUT OF HERE!!!”
^^ based off of that one post ^ on tumblr (you know the one ^^) and also Pinapplerum and tons of other peoples' art for this au.
quick disclaimer this au doesn't belong to me. it belongs to everyone that participated in the creation of this. we all went insane during lore drought.
Words: 2108, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Dream SMP - Fandom, Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: Gen
Characters: Rendog (Video Blogging RPF), Ryan | GoodTimesWithScar, Oliver Brotherhood, Charles | Grian, Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Floris | Fundy, Niki | Nihachu, John Booko, Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Alexis | Quackity
Relationships: Oliver Brotherhood & Charles | Grian, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Alexis | Quackity & Jschlatt, Floris | Fundy & Niki | Nihachu, John Booko & Ryan | GoodTimesWithScar
Additional Tags: Based on a Tumblr Post, Inspired by Tumblr, Hermitcraft and DSMP, crossover technically, 2020 L'Manberg Election on Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF)
source https://archiveofourown.org/works/37411984
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