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Recently it was brought to our attention that a Wintreath citizen was covertly operating with the goal of destroying our community from the inside. This person operated from a private server owned by former Wintreath citizen AJ Blarg. In the pursuit of his goal he has sowed dissent amongst our citizens, worked to divide us. As you can see from the evidence below, Gally even claims to have the means to destroy Wintreath's website, even though he chooses not to. Wintermoot has checked to see who has admin access on the website and Gally does not. The website's host has been contacted to confirm that. In the meantime we can only assume that Gally either has illegal access to the site's administrative functions via hacking which he himself has done (or has hired a hacker to do so for him) or he has exploited a bug that allows him the required access. The website has been backed up just in case his claims are true. That being said, the following sentence is handed out:

Gally Nukes is hereby banned form all Wintreath platforms permanently. He has threatened this community both by destroying its website and by attacking its members in an effort to destroy this region.

AJ Blarg is hereby banned from all Wintreath platforms permanently. Not only did he join the group and support them, he hosted their talks, providing a base for them. This is inexcusable.

Niko, better known to us in Wintreath as Gatto, is hereby banned from all Wintreath platforms permanently. He not only joined the group and supported them, he did not report it to forum or Discord administration. He knew about their claims of being able to destroy the website and had no problem with it. This is unacceptable.

Laurentus is hereby banned from Wintreath's forum until such a time that he feels he is ready to rejoin the community. hereby receives a formal reprimand for leaking information from a classified channel. While Laurentus did tip the group off that the ops were onto them, he was extremely angry at the time after the cabinet had discussed the incident regarding Shadow and things got out of hand. The ops team knows that Laurentus genuinely cares about our community. He acted out of anger, not malice. He too contacted Gally in an effort to talk him down. When he has calmed down and wishes to come back, we will welcome him with open arms.

Ambermoonstar has been cleared of wrongdoing. Ambermoonstar may have been in the server but is not a Wintreath citizen or resident. More than that, there is no evidence that Ambermoonstar supported the group's efforts or goals. In fact, she had provided the very evidence that exposed the group. We are grateful for her assistance.

Evidence:
https://i.imgur.com/gvCa9Ii.png
https://i.imgur.com/FSOioM1.png
https://i.imgur.com/jTvg0w3.png
-------------------------------------

As an addendum: Close inspection of the third image has revealed new information. The dark background outside the highlighted area shows further conversation within AJ's server regarding the group's efforts.

A text transcript of it is also provided with this image.

Today at 9:55AM
a pocket full of gally: Oh I'm positive he wants to get Shadow unbanned
And they know they need my permission cuz I'd flip out
Oh yeah

Today at 9:56AM
Arenado: He did?

Today at 9:56AM
a pocket full of gally: Who fucking snitched about the FTP shit?
[the highlighted screenshot right here]

Today at 9:57AM
Kaerakh: Invite Lau over
He's good people, I'd like to keep in contact

Today at 9:57AM
a pocket full of gally: I don't really care, I want it to spread around
By tomorrow I will be the elite hacker Anonymous
I was gonna ask that, yeah
He is good people, I agree

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE

Update: Gatto and AJ are exonerated entirely due to new evidence that came to light. They tried to talk Gally down and they didn't report it because they believed the situation was resolved, that they had succeeded.

Laurentus' punishment, while able to end at his hands on a whim, was wrong. He contacted Gally to try and talk him down. He did tip him off, but there was no anger or malice from him over it. His sentence has been revised to a formal reprimand for leaking information from a classified channel.

This is the result of both parties (minus Gally) getting together calmly. The ops team had asked multiple times if they had evidence to disprove the charges against them. It took some time but the ops team sat down in Wintreath's server, in a public channel, to work things out. Evidence provided by AJ and Laurentus has exonerated them as well as Gatto and North. Both parties have hashed out our differences and are on friendly terms once again.

Gally's sentence however still stands.

On the subject of North, I, Emoticonius/The Church of Satan, implicated North as being aware of Gally's intentions to both commit forum destruction and the real world crime of hacking and staying silent about it. The new evidence has shown that information to be false. I was so certain at the time that I was right. My actions in this regard were unauthorized by the ops team. Although I have done so in Wintreath's discord server, it's important that I do this here where you will no doubt have been alerted of via ping, telegram or PM on Discord. I deeply apologize to North for my actions. It was beyond wrong of me.

Laurentus got banned without any form of active participation or intent to destroy the community but for merely telling Gally that there have been rumours he has been trying to destroy the site? I know it’s merely symbolic, a “temporary ban” till he “calms down and wishes to come back” but this is bloody ridiculous. Mind you, I can understand why you would want to permanently ban the other three but Laurentus’ action shown in the evidence hardly indicates an intent to “tip the group off”. At the very least, show us the evidence that Laurentus is aware of the group’s existence and behaviour and has made the deliberate decision to inform the group to cover their tracks.

Laurentus got banned without any form of active participation or intent to destroy the community but for merely telling Gally that there have been rumours he has been trying to destroy the site? I know it’s merely symbolic, a “temporary ban” till he “calms down and wishes to come back” but this is bloody ridiculous. Mind you, I can understand why you would want to permanently ban the other three but Laurentus’ action shown in the evidence hardly indicates an intent to “tip the group off”. At the very least, show us the evidence that Laurentus is aware of the group’s existence and behaviour and has made the deliberate decision to inform the group to cover their tracks.

Laurentus had already known that it wasn't a rumor. The cabinet had been shown some of the evidence less than a day before he contacted Gally. However I want to reiterate that Laurentus' punishment is largely redundant because he had already left Wintreath. Laurentus can come back literally any time he wants. That's why he was only banned from the forum. He can come back to the discord and contact us form there whenever he wants to return, at which point his forum ban will be reversed.

Recently it was brought to our attention that a group composed of Wintreath citizens and former Wintreath citizens were covertly operating with the goal of destroying our community from the inside. This group operated from a private server owned by former Wintreath citizen AJ Blarg. In the pursuit of their goal they have sowed dissent amongst our citizens, worked to divide us. As you can see from the evidence below, Gally even claims to have the means to destroy Wintreath's website, even though he chooses not to. Wintermoot has checked to see who has admin access on the website and Gally does not. The website's host has been contacted to confirm that. In the meantime we can only assume that Gally either has illegal access to the site's administrative functions via hacking which he himself has done (or has hired a hacker to do so for him) or he has exploited a bug that allows him the required access. The website has been backed up just in case his claims are true. That being said, the following sentences are handed out:

Gally Nukes is hereby banned form all Wintreath platforms permanently. He has threatened this community both by destroying its website and by attacking its members in an effort to destroy this region.

AJ Blarg is hereby banned from all Wintreath platforms permanently. Not only did he join the group and support them, he hosted their talks, providing a base for them. This is inexcusable.

Niko, better known to us in Wintreath as Gatto, is hereby banned from all Wintreath platforms permanently. He not only joined the group and supported them, he did not report it to forum or Discord administration. He knew about their claims of being able to destroy the website and had no problem with it. This is unacceptable.

Laurentus is hereby banned from Wintreath's forum until such a time that he feels he is ready to rejoin the community. While Laurentus did tip the group off that the ops were onto them, he was extremely angry at the time after the cabinet had discussed the incident regarding Shadow and things got out of hand. The ops team knows that Laurentus genuinely cares about our community. He acted out of anger, not malice. When he has calmed down and wishes to come back, we will welcome him with open arms.

Ambermoonstar has been cleared of wrongdoing. Ambermoonstar may have been in the server but is not a Wintreath citizen or resident. More than that, there is no evidence that Ambermoonstar supported the group's efforts or goals. In fact, she had provided the very evidence that exposed the group. We are grateful for her assistance.

Evidence:
https://i.imgur.com/gvCa9Ii.png
https://i.imgur.com/FSOioM1.png
https://i.imgur.com/jTvg0w3.png

gally and lau are entirely innocent.
Shadow was the main problem. And the only problem.

Banning gally is like banning luna. Because they were involved doesnt mean they caused it

gally and lau are entirely innocent.
Shadow was the main problem. And the only problem.

Banning gally is like banning luna. Because they were involved doesnt mean they caused it

The evidence shows that Gally was the primary perpetrator in all this.
Laurentus did do something wrong. He tipped Gally off. Warned him that the ops team was aware of his activities. We know that he did not want the site destroyed. That's why all he got was a slap on the wrist.

Laurentus got banned without any form of active participation or intent to destroy the community but for merely telling Gally that there have been rumours he has been trying to destroy the site? I know it’s merely symbolic, a “temporary ban” till he “calms down and wishes to come back” but this is bloody ridiculous. Mind you, I can understand why you would want to permanently ban the other three but Laurentus’ action shown in the evidence hardly indicates an intent to “tip the group off”. At the very least, show us the evidence that Laurentus is aware of the group’s existence and behaviour and has made the deliberate decision to inform the group to cover their tracks.

Laurentus had already known that it wasn't a rumor. The cabinet had been shown some of the evidence less than a day before he contacted Gally. However I want to reiterate that Laurentus' punishment is largely redundant because he had already left Wintreath. Laurentus can come back literally any time he wants. That's why he was only banned from the forum. He can come back to the discord and contact us form there whenever he wants to return, at which point his forum ban will be reversed.

This looks to me like the Administration is trying to ascribe an intent where they do not necessarily know one. Laurentus clearly did leak sensitive information, but anger and malice are hardly the only two possible reasons for this. The sole message log provided looks more like he was trying to talk Gally down from doing anything illegal or destructive, in particular to Wintreath.

Given this context, an indefinitely long temp ban seems rather counterproductive to the stated goal of welcoming him back "with open arms" when he has "calmed down." I would certainly expect it to have an alienating, rather than calming or reconciliatory, effect.

gally and lau are entirely innocent.
Shadow was the main problem. And the only problem.

Banning gally is like banning luna. Because they were involved doesnt mean they caused it

It is possible for dangerous/inexcusable behavior to occur incidentally to other dangerous/inexcusable behavior. That one occurs in response to another would hardly justify it. In this case, it would seem based on the OP that Gally has made credible threats to literally delete Wintreath. Regardless of Shadow, that behavior coming from Gally is highly concerning to say the least, and I'd hope you'd agree would require immediate action.

I am more concerned about Laurentus, and Gatto to a lesser extent. Gatto was hardly a mandatory reporter, to use the IRL term (not that such positions exist in Wintreath). I understand the possible need for some form of punishment, but a permanent ban for not reporting something seems quite extreme.

This looks to me like the Administration is trying to ascribe an intent where they do not necessarily know one. Laurentus clearly did leak sensitive information, but anger and malice are hardly the only two possible reasons for this. The sole message log provided looks more like he was trying to talk Gally down from doing anything illegal or destructive, in particular to Wintreath.

Given this context, an indefinitely long temp ban seems rather counterproductive to the stated goal of welcoming him back "with open arms" when he has "calmed down." I would certainly expect it to have an alienating, rather than calming or reconciliatory, effect.

We couldn't just ignore his leak of sensitive information. We had to do something.
The fact that Laurentus, not us, determines how long the ban is hardly makes it a punishment at all. And that was the point.

I am more concerned about Laurentus, and Gatto to a lesser extent. Gatto was hardly a mandatory reporter, to use the IRL term (not that such positions exist in Wintreath). I understand the possible need for some form of punishment, but a permanent ban for not reporting something seems quite extreme.

Let's try a metaphor to help illustrate the seriousness of his crime. Wintreath is a house. Gally wanted to burn the house down. Gatto knew he wanted to burn the house down. He sat there and listened to him rant about it. Then the police were tipped off about Gally's intention to burn down the house. So Gally was arrested. Gatto stood by prepared to watch Gally burn down the house instead of warning the people inside.

Mind you that is a metaphor. I'm not equating forum destruction with arson. It was just an adequate metaphor.

Laurentus, admittedly, is one that I personally wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of even temp banning him...because I saw the context of his PM as "Hey, I heard what you're doing and I think you should stop and just leave."  On top of that, Laurentus is a very prominent member and has built up a lot of respect from members here, myself included.  But I was okay with the idea of a "symbolic" ban at the time because it has no specific time period.  Laurentus could come back today in the Discord and the ban would be lifted since it has no definite time limit.  But I was okay with it mainly because he made no attempts to let us know that it was in fact credible threats when Gally responsed suggesting as such...we had to find out from someone else screenshotting that convo and sending it to us, learning at the same moment that he had even joined that server.  Not to mention, he even admitted that it was from knowledge that he gained from the cabinet that was supposed to be strictly for their eyes only.

If he had used that to bait Gally to admitting (which he did) and shared it with us, we more than likely wouldnt have even had to discuss a symbolic ban.

But I do agree that complacency is iffy, especially since, as I said, it screamed more to me that he was trying yo talk Gally out of it.  He's really the only one I wasn't entirely comfortable with in that decision.

As far as Gatto goes, his went beyond supporting for me and more into what I read as his suggestion that he'd even join in the forum destruction once it was done.

Let's try a metaphor to help illustrate the seriousness of his crime. Wintreath is a house. Gally wanted to burn the house down. Gatto knew he wanted to burn the house down. He sat there and listened to him rant about it. Then the police were tipped off about Gally's intention to burn down the house. So Gally was arrested. Gatto stood by prepared to watch Gally burn down the house instead of warning the people inside.

Mind you that is a metaphor. I'm not equating forum destruction with arson. It was just an adequate metaphor.

Looking at the real-world analogy was precisely what drove me to mention this in my previous post.

In Commonwealth countries, knowing about and not reporting a felony is known as "misprision of felony." This was a misdemeanor. I say "was" because it has largely been repealed in the past century or so due to criminal justice reform.

In the United States, a law exists, but has been ruled to require active concealment rather than just witnessing a crime. It is typically used only against those with a special duty to report.

On the topic of this, I'd also like to point out that there is background chat on the 3rd image, where Gally clearly owns up that he was serious by asking who "snitched" about it, posting the screenshot that we see.  This would be how we actually were able to get that specific screenshot.

On the subject of North in the addendum, I will point out that his post was before Gally's callout.  Regardless of close time stamp, there is no definitive proof that he knew of events before we did...which was furthered when I PMed him on Discord and he was insistant that he only saw Gally's post much later after we already knew of it.

And for anything people might to say against him, the one thing he's never done is lie to me.  So as outlandish as that may seem, I'm inclined to believe that he wasn't aware of it when it was originally posted.

Off that note, I'm officially resigning from Wintreath for good, effective immediately.  This whole situation has disgusted me to my very core, both in how it has transpired and how it's been handled.

I absolutely cannot abide a region that pussyfoots around subjects.  I'm appalled that the perma banning of Gatto is being upheld even after learning that it was said jokingly since we don't know the entire context of the chat outside of a single "incriminating" screenshot...yet the ops team including myself were set on temp banning Shadow on the basis of giving the benefit of the doubt it was a joke.

I'm furious at how one person's threat of a forum destruction has turned into a witch hunt of banning  or even discussions of banning anyone who was even in the same room, including Laurentus and North, both prominent and well respected members of the community that joined shortly after I did.

And I'm absolutely livid that Wintermoot himself actually had the audacity to compare reporting forum destruction to reporting getting sexually harasssed.  Nowhere are the two even close, and it's absolutely disgusting to even consider making such a comparison, especially after we just finished banning a sexual predator very recently!

So I'm done.  For good.  I appreciate the good days I had here, but they're obviously over, and I see no reason to keep pushing for the glory days that will never come back.

Goodbye.

And I'm absolutely livid that Wintermoot himself actually had the audacity to compare reporting forum destruction to reporting getting sexually harasssed.  Nowhere are the two even close, and it's absolutely disgusting to even consider making such a comparison, especially after we just finished banning a sexual predator very recently!

I did not compare or mean to compare forum destruction to sexual harassment, I was making the point that in many cases, such as with sexual harassment, if you see or hear something and don't report it yourself, you become liable as an accomplice. Given the seriousness of forum destruction, which is still a serious thing, and the fact that hacking is a real-life crime as well, I felt it was appropriate that the same applied here. The only point of mentioning sexual harassment specifically at all was as an offline example of that concept based on the rule I'm most familiar with from my job. I apologize if I did not make that more clear, but I definitely did not intend to compare the two things as some kind of equivalency.

As I pointed out in ops chat, Gatto not only interacted with Gally when he made the threat, he was actually on our server at the same time and it would have been so simple to make a report, especially after it became known to them that somebody had leaked the whole thing. But he didn't. Your reasoning was that he couldn't be expected to report it because he didn't like the region, and that's shit. That's shit even as an excuse. As someone who has been involved in other regions, he particularly knew how serious regions take even the threat of forum destruction. Based on what I've seen at this point, I continue to support the permaban, and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

I want to point out that I'm the only op that advocated for a lesser punishment towards Laurentus: a simple textual reprimand as part of the statement. It can't be denied that he leaked classified information that he only had knowledge of because he was a member of the Cabinet and had access to the private area where the initial screenshot was posted and the matter initially discussed, and that he directly leaked it to the person that was under investigation. I specifically said that I felt at worst he was only guilty of the IC crime of release of classified information. But I was the only person who felt this way (I guess another case of Wintermoot being too soft), and the consensus was for the punishment that was levied.

As for North, I vigorously argued exactly what you're saying and continued to do so after you left. North says he didn't see it, and we have no absolute proof that he did, so we have to give him the benefit of the doubt. I did advocate for posting a text transcript or highlighted image of that darkened log so that people could better see the conversation and make up their own minds, but I specifically stated that nobody should be mentioned because I didn't want it to look like we were implying that they were involved without irrefutable evidence. I did not see the Addendum until this morning, and I'm dismayed that it went out of its way to point to North. I've removed those references myself, and I deeply apologize to North that he was even indirectly implicated through it.

I'm sorry that you think so lowly of this region and of me at this point. I'm exasperated with the administrative dramas, the misrepresentation of things I say and do, and the outright slander and lies about me that I know are going on in DM myself. It's been a very stressful week, and everyone's on a short fuse. I hope in time you will consider my points here and change your mind, but regardless, thanks for everything you've done for the community over the years, and it was good knowing you. I wish you the best in the future.

And I'm absolutely livid that Wintermoot himself actually had the audacity to compare reporting forum destruction to reporting getting sexually harasssed.  Nowhere are the two even close, and it's absolutely disgusting to even consider making such a comparison, especially after we just finished banning a sexual predator very recently!

I did not compare or mean to compare forum destruction to sexual harassment, I was making the point that in many cases, such as with sexual harassment, if you see or hear something and don't report it yourself, you become liable as an accomplice. Given the seriousness of forum destruction, which is still a serious thing, and the fact that hacking is a real-life crime as well, I felt it was appropriate that the same applied here. The only point of mentioning sexual harassment specifically at all was as an offline example of that concept based on the rule I'm most familiar with from my job. I apologize if I did not make that more clear, but I definitely did not intend to compare the two things as some kind of equivalency.

As I pointed out in ops chat, Gatto not only interacted with Gally when he made the threat, he was actually on our server at the same time and it would have been so simple to make a report, especially after it became known to them that somebody had leaked the whole thing. But he didn't. Your reasoning was that he couldn't be expected to report it because he didn't like the region, and that's shit. That's shit even as an excuse. As someone who has been involved in other regions, he particularly knew how serious regions take even the threat of forum destruction. Based on what I've seen at this point, I continue to support the permaban, and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Since we're still on the topic of real-world analogies, I don't think this is accurate. There are certain individuals, such as those working at schools or in healthcare, who have a legal duty to report crimes that they witness or hear about because their job involves working with vulnerable people. (Edit: This is the mandated reporting that I discussed in an earlier post.) In general, witnessing and not reporting sexual violence is not a crime. In fact, guides on what to do if a friend has been sexually assaulted typically emphasize the need to respect the friend's decision on whether or not to report.

Since we're still on the topic of real-world analogies, I don't think this is accurate. There are certain individuals, such as those working at schools or in healthcare, who have a legal duty to report crimes that they witness or hear about because their job involves working with vulnerable people. In general, witnessing and not reporting sexual violence is not a crime. In fact, guides on what to do if a friend has been sexually assaulted typically emphasize the need to respect the friend's decision on whether or not to report.

The training that I receive on a yearly basis for my job always strongly emphases that if you witness or are told about sexual harassment, you must report it. The training advises that even if you think they're about to tell you something about it, that you should tell them that if they do so then you're legally obligated to report it. You could be right that it's specific to the industry I work in (higher education) and some others, but I was going off of personal experience.

My point really was that there are some examples where failing to report something makes you partly responsible, and I think for something as serious as this, it's inexcusable for someone who directly responded to what was said and was even on our server at the time to not report it. The sad thing is the only person there that did report it was the person that's never been here and has virtually no ties to the region.

Moot is right. We may not be RL government employees or anything like that, but we are a community. A community is supposed to look out for one another as well as the community as a whole. As members of that community we have a duty both to each other and to ourselves to do so. What if we never learned about this? What if Gally's claims of hacking are true? This site would be gone by now. Our community would be devastated right now beyond anything we're feeling right now. We would have lost so much.