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@taulover: Thank you for your kind words, and for lending your voice to our efforts to become a better place. I look forward to working with you.

I am probably gonna piss off a bunch of people on all sides of this debacle with this post, but I must do what I believe is right. Anyway

It is certainly true that Wintermoot has flaws as a leader, as does the rest of Wintreath's leadership past and present. Wintreath is led by people and all people are flawed. As I said last month, senior individuals in Wintreath have history of doing what at first was a minor misstep, but which then blows completely out of proportion because they refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. As leaders, the impact of our actions often matter far more than the intent, and it can be hard to recognize that. Meanwhile, due to the Fundamental Attribution Error, others' intent and context are often ignored. I will point to two recent examples.

First, the circumstances leading to Neon Abigail's departure in August. This conflict not only led to the departure of a valued member of our community, but severed what I understand to have been a close friendship. To recap, Abi had left the Discord server, which iirc is something she had a history of doing previously as well in order to cool off after heated discussions. She was still actively posting on the forums and participating in Werewolf, but Mars assumed for some reason that she was no longer hosting Summersend Spyfall, and thus unilaterally announced the cancellation of her game. Abi reacted confused, but instead of just apologizing, Mars doubled down and made excuses, refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing. They also appeared to snarkily drag up private interpersonal relationship drama, which felt inappropriate given that Mars was acting in an official capacity as Thane. Michi then also shifted the blame to Abi by placing the onus on her to reach out to still confirm that she was still hosting. This was incredibly odd to me, and Abi expressed confusion as well when I reached out to her. From her perspective, she had left the Discord to deescalate tensions quietly, and instead, Mars had used her completely unrelated role as Thane of Culture to drag this out into the open. Even though I know it was not intended as such, it probably felt like she was being punished by someone in an unequal power dynamic for things done in a completely separate context.

Michi had locked the relevant forum thread (which I believe created a chilling effect on helping to resolve and learn from this drama - several people were using likes to show support for Abi, but nothing could be easily said), so I reached out Wintermoot privately, as I know he tends to prefer this. As he typically does, Wintermoot wholly defended Mars (and Michi), claiming that the validity of their actions was a matter of debate and that they certainly did not intend to do this. By contrast, Abi's feelings (which were very understandable given the context, imo) were being misinterpreted as as an accusation that Wintrean leadership was conspiring to punish her. Both publicly and privately, and both out of earshot and to her face, a narrative was being told that Abi was the one to blame, that she was the one being unreasonable, etc. Every consideration was being made to the intent of the leadership, but not to Abi's. Furthermore, by keeping so much of this in DMs, these narratives could form unchecked. As I said last month, we need to try to understand the other side and apologize for misunderstanding, instead of doubling down on our mistakes and misinterpretations. It's very human to do this - I certainly have in the past - but community leaders must strive to be better than that.

After that, I did not have the energy to speak out about my concerns publicly. I was moving to a new city and starting a full-time job for the first time - other things took priority, and I ended up taking a break from Wintreath. I'm sorry that we couldn't resolve this at the time - there was so much we should have learned as a community but did not.

Second, the furry bigotry incident. Much has already been said about this, so I will just share my two cents. I understand where Michi was coming from - furries are the target of bigotry, the most notable incident probably being a tear gas attack by a right-wing terrorist in 2014, which was largely laughed at by mainstream media and government authorities instead of taken seriously. However, we can sometimes misspeak and then be misinterpreted as a result. What we meant to say or do is different from what we actually said or did. Michi had a very reasonable opinion that was worded very poorly. Instead of recognizing this mistake, and apologizing for the accidental harm caused by his poor choice of wording, he doubled down based on what he intended to say. But again, impact is what matters here, not intent. Refusal to acknowledge this has led to repeated blowings-up of what should have been minor issues.

(I will also point out that during this incident, trader muted people who were airing their grievances on Discord, thereby further inflaming tensions.)

With all this said, I think it should be clear to anyone reading that the letter in the OP does resonate with me (even if the facts presented ore rather one-sided). As trader said in his letter, and as I said last month, all that people really needed in these situations was an acknowledgement of the mistake, an apology. Instead, the pattern has been one of doubling down and escalation. It's important to note though that these issues are not exclusive to any one person, but to many key community leaders in general, including those on both sides of this split. We are all human and we can only strive to be better than we were before.

Finally, I must say that the community's treatment of Wintermoot last night in #wintreath was completely unwarranted and uncalled for. The continuous mockery and public shaming was utterly unnecessary, unproductive, and self-serving.

I'll be around on the forums as always. Campfire has taken the Minecraft server with them, so I'll be over there too (Pond and I are finally building actual Nether infrastructure, complete with blue ice boat roads). I wish all community leaders the best of luck and hope that you can take the important lessons necessary from everything that has happened. Your jobs are not enviable but I hope they are fulfilling.

Edit: minor phrasing

Hi.
So a big thing with moderation here was that I never felt like I had a voice. I tried a lot to speak up and explain things that were bothering me and why they were bothering me and how they were bothering me and I just got shot down and silenced again and again and again every single time.

I wasn't leadership and I wasn't trying to be but there were problems and I saw cracks and I wanted to help because I loved it here so I tried to.

Now don't get me wrong. I was not and am not a stable person emotionally and I fucked up a lot and I got upset and I got heated but like...I don't think things were ever really handled well.

The reason why I left discord in the first place that last time was because I was trying to discuss some moderation things going on with Silv over a game that I thought were kinda being overblown and I got silenced and basically told to stay in my lane. So I left to chill which is something I was working on because I didn't want to cause problems anymore and leaving to calm down was an effective way for me to not boil over on people. And a unilateral decision was made to cancel my game without anyone ever talking to me and it upset me and not a single voice in power tried to understand my perspective. Not one. I was just railed on by everyone including people I thought... and still think of personally...as my friends. Some of my closest fucking friends in fact.

I don't feel I was treated fairly for one second of that time. I have spent months... to this very day in fact... crying to my boyfriend on random days because one of the people that meant the most to me in this world hates me because of a misunderstanding and I was never given a chance. Leadership here didn't try to give me a voice or understand what I meant or how I felt because it didn't matter all that mattered was what they thought my intent was.

So... that's that. My thoughts on the most recent incident align with those who left. I wasn't here and I'm not going to try to be a part of that but what I will say is.

This region has had a huge issue with moderation and their inability and unwillingness to give those outside moderation any benefit of the doubt and any intent or willingness to listen or understand the point and intent and actual meaning of others.  This was true when I left and it is true now.

Wintreath meant the world to me. It formed friendships for me that meant the world to me with people I went out of my way to meet in real life. The web of what Wintreath meant to me and my life is how I met my boyfriend and its how I met people I  considered my best friends. It's also led to the loss of a lot of those same friendships Wintreath for as much as it had given me took just as much away from me. It spiraled me into a depression I'm still fighting against. It led me to leave not just the region but NS and for a while the internet itself all together.

Wintreath needs a lot of work it can be beautiful but it can be ugly as well and I hope those of you who remain work hard to try to understand... truly understand and acknowledge the work and the issues and the problems on a deep level. This needs more than lip service it needs real fundamental effort to fix.

@☆ Neon ☆: For what it's worth, I'm terribly sorry that I played a role in putting you through all that you've been through. I have no excuse. tau's description of what I said to him when he reached out is correct, and I'm not sure I ever even thought to reach out to you personally try to understand what was going on your end. I don't know why...that's the maddening thing about this. It seems so obvious now, but for some reason it just didn't at the time.

But I know what you're going through, because it's what I'm going through now. I now know what it's like to lose friends that you thought you'd have for life, to break down thinking that people you care about and even love don't want anything to do with you or even hate you...to start on a downward spiral that leaves you a broken, sobbing mess questioning your entire existence or worth as a person. I'm grateful for the friends I have that help me to deal with it when those feelings come crashing down...but at least I deserve those things, you absolutely did not. What happened should not have led to your game being cancelled or anything happening, much less the loss of your closest friends. You weren't treated fairly at all, and it kills me that you're going through this too when you're not at fault.

But I do know how you feel. And again, I'm grateful that you were so open with sharing how what happened made and continues to make you feel...I can't imagine that it was easy for you to come back and do that. Wintreath was a very special place...the sort of place where you could make friendships and be close to people like almost nowhere else online. But when things are mishandled and go out of control, the results can be devastating...as I think everybody that's been here long enough can speak to in one way or another. Maybe someday it can be that place again, minus the horrible things. I don't know what you think of what we've been doing since then...but I hope you and others see it as fundamental effort instead of just lip service. If we're going down the wrong path, please let us know why you feel that way. I said at the beginning that I would do what it takes to become a better person, friend, and leader...and to fix the systemic issues in Wintreath as well, and I still mean it.

But thank you again for reaching out and letting us know how what happened made you feel...it more than makes clear the consequences of our fucking up as leaders and moderators.

Also, trader's opinion was pretty clear when he singled you out as someone that should never have been an Op.

Except trader actually approved Michi as an op again at the same time Mars became an op.

Actually, now that I think about it, and I'll have to go back to the logs, but I think that was entirely trader's decision (not that I would have opposed it, of course).

I want to note that posts like this are like not good because whatever your intent it reads negatively. 

It reads like you are trying to discredit and shift blame onto someone who raised an issue with something. It reads like you are trying to harm the people who raised a concern against you. It reads extensively defensive. 

Ultimately what is leadership trying to accomplish when they post this? What do you want to accomplish and what do you think you are actually going to accomplish with posts like these?

@☆ Neon ☆: For what it's worth, I'm terribly sorry that I played a role in putting you through all that you've been through. I have no excuse. tau's description of what I said to him when he reached out is correct, and I'm not sure I ever even thought to reach out to you personally try to understand what was going on your end. I don't know why...that's the maddening thing about this. It seems so obvious now, but for some reason it just didn't at the time.

But I know what you're going through, because it's what I'm going through now. I now know what it's like to lose friends that you thought you'd have for life, to break down thinking that people you care about and even love don't want anything to do with you or even hate you...to start on a downward spiral that leaves you a broken, sobbing mess questioning your entire existence or worth as a person. I'm grateful for the friends I have that help me to deal with it when those feelings come crashing down...but at least I deserve those things, you absolutely did not. What happened should not have led to your game being cancelled or anything happening, much less the loss of your closest friends. You weren't treated fairly at all, and it kills me that you're going through this too when you're not at fault.

But I do know how you feel. And again, I'm grateful that you were so open with sharing how what happened made and continues to make you feel...I can't imagine that it was easy for you to come back and do that. Wintreath was a very special place...the sort of place where you could make friendships and be close to people like almost nowhere else online. But when things are mishandled and go out of control, the results can be devastating...as I think everybody that's been here long enough can speak to in one way or another. Maybe someday it can be that place again, minus the horrible things. I don't know what you think of what we've been doing since then...but I hope you and others see it as fundamental effort instead of just lip service. If we're going down the wrong path, please let us know why you feel that way. I said at the beginning that I would do what it takes to become a better person, friend, and leader...and to fix the systemic issues in Wintreath as well, and I still mean it.

But thank you again for reaching out and letting us know how what happened made you feel...it more than makes clear the consequences of our fucking up as leaders and moderators.

I'm going to reply to this as thoroughly as possible. The thing here is that things should be simple right? To me in this situation right now the simple thing and the right thing is for Michi to apologize and step down from the position of Op immediately. Michi is not a bad person I've spent a lot of time around him we even ran a region together for a while I know this and I know Michi is smart and I know he understands how what he said was wrong even as unintended as it was. The solution was an apology, acceptance that a mistake was made and a step down from leadership and that step down could have even just been temporary I think. This situation needed not happen.

Same too the situation which led to me leaving never needed to happen. All that needed to happen was to have someone ask if I was going to continue to take part in Summersend. Instead an assumption based on others and not myself was made. I had left the Discord before and remained in the region and active and came back in hours or at worst a few days. 

The Bob incident too had a relatively simple solution. But in each instance the worst possible set of events transpires. It's important to figure out why it seems that situations like these arise and people double or triple down instead of taking a step back realizing there was a mistake and taking the right steps. 

Next.  You do not deserve to be treated poorly. Nobody here deserves to be treated poorly nobody who left nobody who stayed nobody deserves to be treated poorly. There are people who deserve to have the worst most painful shitty existence and you are not one of them. You do not deserve to feel like shit to feel depressed and hopeless. If you truly feel how I've felt these last several months you do not deserve that. It sucks. I'm not trying to make you or anyone else feel bad I'm just trying to create a dialog and maybe also make sure like this doesn't happen again to anyone.

The important thing is like... well something I struggled with was like realizing the people aren't going to come back. I'm not getting my friends back probably. But I can grow. I can better myself and learn to handle myself in situations better. I can look at what happened and take steps necessary so that I can grow and improve myself so I don't make my friend in the future feel like I'm personally attacking them with my words unintended or not. I can learn to handle my feelings better and be an adult. That's the growth I've tried to reach while being gone. So look at this for yourself and the region. Don't feel negatively about yourself don't try to approach this like you deserve it. You need to look at the situation figure out the problems and work every day to fix this because your probably not getting anyone back but you can throw growth and leadership to make it not happen with the next group that calls this their home right? So how does the region grow and how does the leadership grow and how do you grow and all change from this for the future?

Anyways I've buried my feelings on why I left for so long and being here hurts and talking about things hurts and what happened to me means nothing really what happened next is infinitely worse than what happened to me.  However I came to Wintreath today because someone asked me to find my first Werewolf game for them and it was here. But when I came to search for that I saw Michis post and it caught my eye as someone who left the region. Unintended for me as it was I read it. Than I found this and read through the post from Mars and than the replies here and saw my name and I guess...I don't know I decided to talk for the first time... and tell the truth about how moderation here effected me because I want it to be known this region carries weight and the consequences of what happen here what's said here and what's done here holds weight. 

You might think it's ridiculous that I've let this personally effect me for months. I think it's ridiculous that I've let this personally effect me for months but it has. There's are times when I least expect it where I break down in tears and when asked why it's because I don't know what I did wrong here. Like... it's so dumb. I do not want you to feel bad about yourself. I do not want to upset you. I want you to understand that a simple thing... the simplest smallest thing can matter a ton and sometimes not taking a step back to cool down before replying can ruin everything and sometimes the smallest ripple can cause the wave that destroys a nation. So it's important to figure out what actions can happen here to stop this cycle because it's happened so many times.

@☆ Neon ☆: This has been a long evolution for me that's taken place over days and weeks. You're not the first person to say that things were simple or obvious, and I know they were to most everyone else, but they weren't to me. It seemed obvious to me that Michi didn't intend how it was being taken, so I couldn't understand why people were so angry over it...and as I said later on, I didn't even see the fact that people had been hurt over it. Had it not been for the pain of losing so many of my closest friends in the manner that they left driving me to try to understand why they had done so, and if it hadn't been for Lau's skilled and patient teaching, I doubt that would have ever came to understand.

I'm not trying to make excuses...there is no excuse for my dismissiveness, my failure to understand how people including my closest friends were hurting because of it, or the fact that it had to get that far before I could understand. I'm saying this to explain where I was at the time...I was never going to be able to handle that situation or those that came before it appropriately because I was really that oblivious, which is why it ultimately fell to trader to handle them in the past even though it wasn't his burden to begin with. And you're right, the initial situations before I made them worse could have been resolved simply...but I really was that oblivious, and that's why I made them worse instead.

When I posted the first thing you replied to about who brought Michi back in the ops team, I still had no idea what I had done wrong...I was hurt, and confused, and honestly a little angry about some specific things. I felt like I was being blamed for bringing Michi back on the ops team to start with, and that's the place that I posted from at the time. Any sort of realization would not come until later on in the topic, and I know it's the same for Michi because he went through this process with me...Lau went through things with him at the same time he did with me, and it's something he struggled with as well, and then we dealt with them all over again in the recent events involving Alien Zombie. It's not something that I would have posted a week later, but I'm not one to delete things to cover up the fact that I was stupid.

Michi has apologized and committed to stepping down as an op. The only reason he hasn't already done so is because it would leave me and Wuufu as the only two ops left on Discord. Understandably with things as they are, it's a struggle to find people who are able, willing, and have the time to serve in that capacity, although hopefully that will change in the future.

I appreciate your kind words about the pain of losing friends...it's not something I've brought up in public before, because our focus needs to be on fixing the things that have gone horribly wrong and rebuilding our community back better, not on my mental health struggles. But I felt it was important for you to know that I understand what you're going through and how you're feeling there. It's not ridiculous at all...just because the friendships were online doesn't make them mean any less...we've always been super close-knit in Wintreath, and when you lose a close friend it's agonizing...it's like the foundation that helped hold you together has been ripped apart. And unlike me, you did nothing to deserve losing those friendships. And for what it's worth, I don't think it's dumb.

But in my case, it's not so much a matter of being treated poorly as much as it being one of the consequences of my actions, inactions, and general dismissiveness over the course of years. I personally hurt them, both directly at times and through my dismissiveness on matters involving issues we deeply care about...after so many years, and so much disillusionment, and so little hope that I would ever get it, who can blame them for finally having enough of it?

And maybe it's what I needed. The other day I was listening the commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005, and something he said about being forced out of Apple in the 80s struck me: "It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it." As I've already said, I doubt that I would have ever came to understand what I was doing wrong if it weren't for the pain of losing them driving me to do so. Beyond that, I now know first-hand the pain and misery we inflict on our community when we fail the trust placed in us. What made Wintreath special was that we were entrusted with people's feelings and vulnerabilities...we could have never been that super close-knit community of friends without that. But it's also what makes things so crushing when we fail that trust, and I now know that feeling intimately.

I can't imagine how much it hurts for you to be here talking about what you've been through because of what happened. You could have easily ignored the whole thing and been on your way, but I'm glad and grateful that you didn't. I needed to hear what you're going through, and I don't know, maybe I needed to make that connection with what I'm feeling. Now I know how I've made or helped to make people like you feel in our community, and if there's a silver lining at all, it's that knowing this feeling will drive me to make sure nobody has to feel this way in our community again.

As for changing from this for the future, I've posted a lot of stuff on behalf of the RSS is the Compendium forum, and some more stuff on a personal level in the Say What's On Your Mind topic...I don't know how interested in the details of everything we're talking about and considering you are, but if it's something you're interested in I would welcome your thoughts on any of it. But if it hurts too much to be more involved with what we're doing, that's ok, I understand that too. I'm grateful for what you shared with me already...know that I did get something important out of it.