I regret to announce to the community that Katie has been banned from all Wintreath platforms, effective immediately.
Several nights ago on our Discord server, Katie brought up her thoughts about the banning of Clytirrisia in 2019. In the process, she mentioned that she also had thoughts and attractions toward minors, although she also mentioned that it was disgusting. This triggered a discussion among the ops team, and on further investigation it was discovered she had previously described herself as a pedophile. The screenshots of both cases are below:
To some, this may look like an open and shut case, but it is the toughest decision we’ve ever made in Wintreath. Katie had just recently returned to Wintreath, but has always been a passionate leader in the community. She’s had a guiding hand in everything from helping new members to foreign affairs to the delegacy. More importantly, she’s been a great friend to many here, and she’s been there for anybody that’s ever needed help or emotional support. Even now, nobody who weighed into this decision thinks less of her as a person.
Beyond that, it also brought up the matter of our principles as a community. We have a proud history of accepting those who are shunned elsewhere, of giving people a chance to redeem and improve themselves. There is no evidence that Katie has ever acted on these thoughts. In light of these facts, we also struggled with the idea enforcing what’s essentially thoughtcrime, regardless of how repulsive those thoughts might be.
However, this had to be weighed against the great burden of not taking action. Our community includes many minors, and it would be at best irresponsible to put someone who has shared these feelings in a position to interact with them. Furthermore, it became clear that the only way to allow Katie to continue as normal in our community would have been to cover up the entire thing and act like nothing had happened, which is something we simply can’t do no matter how much we like or believe in somebody as a person.
We looked at every angle of this situation, grappled with the moral dilemmas it presented, and deliberated greatly about what this situation meant for Katie and for our community. This is not a decision we came to lightly in any way. We never casually ban a Citizen, especially when it’s a situation that has never come up before and especially when it may potentially conflict with our principles as a community.
However, even in a community as compassionate and accepting as ours, there are limits to what our members and ops team should be expected to take on and vouch for in the name of principle. Ultimately we decided that this was one of those cases that surpassed those limits, and for those reasons we have decided that a ban is necessary and required. It is not a conclusion that we take any joy in coming to, but it is the only conclusion that is reasonable, and in elaborating on the dilemmas that we tackled I hope you will understand why we reached the decision that we did.
