I think we aught to start with just trying to prevent any future issues first. With that in mind, I suppose in all objective reality the order doesn't matter all that much so long as all of it gets resolved. Thank you, Aaron for your posts, and hopefully some other mods will chime in. It would be nice, anyways. Again, though, thank you, Aaron for your dedication to this matter.

Frankly, I think the only thing that really needs to be done here is that the Walter/Lori thing needs addressing from a big-picture perspective. Everything else, i'm okay with. Most of Smoke's blog post is character assassination, and little more. Ironcross merited some form of punishment. Dark is not a tyrant out for blood and unable to hear objections. As far as it taking time to iron this out, I'm quite patient on that score. Know why? Because mods have lives, need time to respond to what's happening, are human, and are not tied to this forum. I believe we're also working with multiple time zones and availability schedules and whatnot, so for heaven's sake, let's dispense with this "veil of silence" nonsense. If we'd gone four months hearing nothing, then okay, sure, that's bad. it's been...what, a couple of weeks at the absolute most?

Frankly, I just want to say that I think Smoke's post is the single most destructive act against this forum that I've ever personally witnessed. I'm thoroughly disgusted with the way it tries to frame a character assassination as reasonable discourse.

Now let's hope there is some good resolution across the board on the near horizon.

Smoke cobbled together a few situations and turned them into supposedly damning testimony against a forum administrator whose record has been overwhelmingly positive otherwise. he ignored nearly all positivity in favour of a skewed perspective on Dark's behaviour, and then, as if that weren't enough, he began drawing conclusions about Dark's character which were neither fair nor accurate. Let's examine:
It would be totally okay to disagree with the decision to ban Ironcross. it's totally okay to have serious misgivings about the Walter and Lori thing. Those are perfectly valid concerns. Framed that way, they are exceptions which prove the rule.
Smoke's post, however, goes far further than this. it suggests that Dark's general modus operandae is to be a dissent-silencing, power-tripping mod who prosecutes based on his own rules. This is not fully justified in Smoke's words, and the evidence he uses to support it is shaky at best and outright busted at worst.
This is character assassination.

And here's why what I'm doing is -not character assassination.
I am not making any real commentary about Smoke, beyond expressing my feelings toward his behaviour. I am not suggesting that he has an axe to grind, not putting words in his mouth, not ascribing motives to him which aren't justified. Nothing I have said against his actions is particularly personal. It is no different than saying that someone who has professed to like SoulCalibur is a SoulCalibur fan. I am stopping well short of character assassination here. Frankly, I don't care what if anything happens to Smoke about this. I'm disgusted, I think his blog post was highly unfair and distorted facts to enough of a degree that I'm rather blown away by the depth of it. And that's as far as I go.

And as far as time zones: Ethin, I'm afraid you might have missed my point. The thing I was getting at is that mods come from different places, so what is evening for one is afternoon for another. They have lives. They have differing schedules of availability. And "veil of silence" implies some sort of Iron Curtain-esque method by which the mods are trying to avoid culpability for their actions. Have you any proof that this is the case? No, you don't. You're upset because you haven'g gotten feedback as fast as you'd like. While your anxiety and even your annoyance is understandable, taking that extra step and characterizing this as a "veil of silence" is just showing bias.
I'm also not particularly pleased to hear you tell me that I hope they brush it under the rug, especially considering that I have said, both here and elsewhere, that I think more resolution is forthcoming, and that it's definitely due. All I've ever tried to caution is that resolution of complex issues takes time, and that the mods are not beholden to your schedule, or anyone else's, in such matters. I would appreciate not having words and suppositions put in my mouth from now on, please.

Or it's a loaded situation they're having trouble with.
Or there are personal details involving one or more parties we aren't privy to which are making life a whole lot harder, quite apart from the forum itself.
Or they're having trouble coming up with a consensus.\
Or they're a bit out of their depth and want to put their best foot forward, so they're deliberating.

Lots of logical alternatives to your theory there. I believe that Smoke's blog post may be colouring the way people are reacting to this situation. instead of realizing that we frankly don't know why this quiet exists, people seem to be poised with torches, making demands, making accusations, believing the worst. I ask you: do any of you doubters and naysayers actually have any precedent upon which to base your assumptions? Have mods routinely ignored a conversation because confronting it might make them look bad? Has this been something that's happened on this forum before with enough regularity that it's become something of a pattern...a pattern you have come to recognize and dislike? Because I've been a member in good standing here for thirteen and a half years or so, and I've gotta tell ya, I've never seen something like this. It's new for everybody.

So okay. The two weeks of no word on the subject is frustrating. I hear that. It's annoying. People may be hurt by what has happened. I get that too. But there is no set-in-stone time window by which point the mods should've deliberated and come to some sort of mutually agreed-upon future course. If my assertion that this is a relatively new and unknown development is correct, then this is as new to them as it is to us. For pity's sake, people, let them try and deal with it. That's what they're there for. Put your torches and your pitchforks aside, break up the mob mentality - because yes, that's what this is, to some extent - and realize that a lack of word does not, in and of itself, constitute a deliberate unwillingness to face the facts.

At this point, Ethin, I'm going to have to ask that you take your own advice. I am not guilty of character assassination. I am judging the straight-up actions of a forum poster. This is not by any means what Smoke has done. For all I know, Smoke is a great guy who just happened to post some opinions in a way I'm really, really not okay with. I'm not stretching what I think here. Unfortunately, reviewing the blog post in question just cements my prior assertion that what Smoke was doing is, like it or not, a form of character assassination. It is a systematic attempt to undermine and erode someone's power, simultaneously by attacking the use of that power and by impugning the character of that person for so doing. This discussion of character assassination, such as it was, is now over.

And regarding time windows: why exactly is any one person the arbiter of how long something should take? What if Dark just had a death in his family and is grieving? What if one of the more influential mods has had computer access issues? Why is it exactly that anyone purports to be arrogant enough to make such demands at all? I'm just sort of in awe at this point. Because that's what it is. Arrogance and entitlement both. The mods should provide a further explanation, and two of them have stepped in to say that it's coming. Surely, that ought to suffice. Now if a whole lot more time goes by where continued similar action occurs, let's talk about it some more. For now, this horse has long since had the hide flogged off of it.

Now that the most important issue has been dealt with, I think a lot of people, myself included, will be able to feel a lot more at peace with the situation. The main problem now, and one that was kind of a back burner one for me, but is actually quite important, is a reform of the rules. It would be good if a moderator creates a topic seeking feedback about what the community would like to see in terms of that, although I have no doubt that some of that is being discussed now. That's not to say that everyone will get what they want, nor should they, but I don't think this topic would be the right place for such a discussion, either. It might actually be time to put this one to rest. I am really not in favor of closing topics unless something grievous has happened in them, but in this case, I think that, after some time goes by, this one should be closed so that new people don't accidentally end up dragging it back from the dead periodically. What that time is, I can't really say, but if others have an opinion about that, it would be good to voice it.

I didn't want to stick my oar in until both sides had come out and said their pieces, now that  this has happened... Here we go
I feel bad for this Walter guy honestly. even with all this stuff coming out later the guy's reputation is still going to be in tatters despite everything saying otherwise. He'll still have to deal with the people who have the mindset of where there's smoke there's fire. It doesn't matter that he didn't do it, When you fling shit like that at someone, it sticks and will continue to be stuck to you for years, or perhaps decades down the line.

Dark screwed up, but fair play to the guy he didn't attempt to wiggle out of owning up to his screw up when it came to light. Some people here would be sending their hamster wheels into overdrive right about now, attempting to come up with something to get them out of the consequences for their actions. Look at all the cool stuff I've done over the years! you're not taking this into account when de- The rest of this sentence is inaudible due to the screeching of hamster wheels.

It really doesn't matter about your past actions, when you set out to fuck someone over in this way, by accident or on purpose, you have to stand up and take your lumps and he stood up and took them gracefully.

That aside, I think that a solid set of rules have to be the norm going forward so we don't end up with another iron cross stile banning, where he seemed to get banned for... Reasons (TM).

Perhaps the mods could let the guy back in also, as the reasons for booting him out were tenuous at best in the first place. Also orco basically continued acting like a turd long after ironcross was booted out, and as far as I'm aware the guy can still post here. The consistency seems to be all over the place and it doesn't seem fair to need out punishment that differs depending on what way the wind is blowing.

Hi all.
I have read the blog post multiple times, have thought about it for very long time, and I would wait to post anything in this topic, until I knew exactly what to say, so here I go:
@Smoke-j: I have some questions:
1. Have you ever thought about the following: Dark might have been forced to take decisions on his own, which he had no clue on how to solve, got the wrong information which effected his decisions or maybe didn't got as much backup from the rest of the moderator team as he needed? My point is: You don't know what's going on in the moderator team, and there might be things going on, which the moderators for whatever reason can't talk about.
2. Have you thought about the following fact: People who choose to hide their names have something to hide.
3. Am I right that you actually have interviewed Dark about all this? Then I don't understand how you are able to feel good by launching that massively attack at him. Are you going after Dark personally, or at the actual job as a moderator? If you are going after the job as a moderator, I think the blog post is way too harsh, like if you are going after him personally.
4. Why are you only involving Dark, and not the rest of the moderator team at that time? Is it only Dark who are responsible for what has happened in your opinion?
5. When your blog post primary is about Dark, why are you only writing about all the bad things he has done? What about all the good things he has done? Are you really that negative and insulting a person? Think about how much work Dark has put into the forum for so many years.
6. Have you ever thought about the consequences of the BSG blog after having written this blog post? I must admit I find it very difficult to recommend this site to anyone, when such insulting and negative blog post is allowed. I can not recommend anyone to get interviewed by the people behind the BSG website, after having seen people being backstabbed and attacked so badly afterwards. People might fear to get interviewed, especially by you, after having seen the consequences.
7. Culture difference: Maybe Americans are more harsh in some ways regarding to communication and writing than us from Europe, (also where Dark comes from.) This is just a thought which I don't know anything about. My point is: If the whole blog post is understood much more harsh than it's ment to be, then it might have caused much more harm than needed. If you really don't hate Dark but just don't liked what he did as a moderator, then I think it's time for you to contact him privately to sort it out.

If the only goal with this blog post was to tell the moderators that something needs to be changed, then I would personally have chosen other ways to do it. I fear this blog post has caused more harm than it ment to do, and we all know who is responsible for this.

I'm sorry if most of the things I mention in this post already has been answered before. After having read the blog post a lot of times and all those posts in the topic, I'm quite overwhelmed by all the information. If some of it has been mentioned before, then just let me know without answering it again. Then I'll look for the answers myself.

Having said all that, I hope we all can move on, and let this place return to a nice place again. This community is too good to be destroyed, and the Audiogames forum means so much for so many people. This forum is one of the reasons for my english has been improved, and the forum and people have given me much more than I'm able to describe.

No one is perfect. We all make mistakes, and most people learn from the mistakes they make.
Let the forum continue to be awesome.

It has been a while since I last looked at this thread, and it seems to have grown a lot in that time.  I think we all get annoyed when someone posts in a thread where they haven't read the whole thing, but I feel like I've skimmed through enough of it that I can comment on a few questions and comments that kept coming up.  When I was still on the moderation team it wouldn't have made sense to come comment on here, until the whole mess had been discussed and figured out by the team.  I'm no longer a moderator, so I don't feel so restricted.

    In a way I felt bad when I saw people asking for the unnamed sources in that article to come forward.  Smoke-J kept the names to himself, which I have to give him kudos for.  There are probably a lot of people who would have defended themselves by throwing out names, even if they had previously agreed not to share them.  The reason I felt bad was not because people were asking for the names, in fact I completely agree that it means a lot less when you're dealing with unnamed sources of information.  The reason I felt bad was because I was one of the moderators Smoke-J had asked questions to, which ultimately made it into this article of his.  You, the community, were right to want that extra info even if it wasn't going to be given to you.  The more info you have, the better you can figure out the answers after all.  It didn't feel good letting him dangle in the wind, haha, while my moderator duties kept me from coming here to at least make that known.

    When I was first made aware of this post, I let my fellow mods know that I had been asked questions by Smoke, and what they pertained to.  While everything points to other mods having spoken to him as well, no one else spoke up so I couldn't tell you their names even if I was so inclined.

    The article covered a wide range of things, but when Smoke sent me questions, it was about the Walter/Lori situation.  He sent me a series of questions so that I could confirm details about it, which made it clear to me that he had already done his homework speaking to other people before he ever got to me.  I believe Smoke's article states that he spoke with both Lori and Walter, and I think that's a pretty safe bet based on the information he wanted me to confirm.  I can't say for sure if he actually spoke to them, but he had info that either came directly from them, indirectly through another person who had spoken with Walter and/or Lori, or directly from Dark.  Take from that what you will, but there is a lot more truth in his article (again I'm speaking about the Walter/Lori part) than some people are giving him credit for.  Are people wrong for doubting the article?  Absolutely not!  You can only go on what info you have, and I'm happy to see people using their brains rather than their feelings.

    While Smoke-J did dig up a lot of accurate information, he of course doesn't have the whole story.  I confirmed pieces of information he asked me about, but because I was in no way associated with the article he was writing, I wasn't setting out to feed him more than what he already had.  If I had been the one writing up an article about the Walter/Lori situation, it would have been considerably more direct, and honestly less kind.

    This isn't really a secret, but when the Walter/Lori situation happened, I conducted my own investigation (as a moderator at that time).  I spent hours in skype calls, exchanged many emails and skype messages, and shared my findings with Dark.  I was first asked to help by Sam, who wondered if I would be willing to hear Walter's side of the story since no one else would.  I agreed and started my investigation of Walter, who I don't believe I had ever spoken with before.  During my investigation with Walter, Lori contacted me worried that the situation with Walter may affect her on Swamp.  That led to me gathering information from her to aid me in my investigation.  Lastly I was contacted by the friend of Lori who had corroborated her story at the very beginning, and I was able to hear her side of things and ask questions.  Neither side knew I was talking to the other, and I made sure to ask each side if they had told me everything Dark had been told.  Both sides assured me that I knew everything there was to know.

    Before I say more, I already know that sharing any of this is not going to make me any friends.  This will likely earn me a few enemies which could have long-lasting effects that I'm going to have to deal with.  I have thought about that a lot, but I'm not comfortable hiding the truth when lies are actively affecting people.  I'm going to pull some punches, quite a few in fact, but even the stuff I do say is likely going to cause some trouble.

    To summarize, I concluded that Lori's story was not credible.  Details would change, and when asking questions parts began to fall apart, especially between the 2 girls who I was speaking with separately.  Even when 2 people agree upon a story, things will begin to unravel when questions are asked, because you'll hit on things that weren't agreed upon in advance.  Suddenly 1 story will adjust to fit with a previously given answer, while the other person's story goes a different way.  Gut feelings do come into play on something like this, but in my opinion no normal person would have walked away believing the girls were credible.  At this very point, someone in charge should have dismissed the whole claim and done nothing to Walter.

    In addition to changing stories, simple (and I do mean simple) fact checking blew them full of holes.  I looked over the logs Sam had provided, and looked over Lori's copies.  Lori's had been tampered with so terribly that it was almost a joke.  Even though tampering with logs does not mean her main story is false, it makes someone seem a whole lot less credible.

    A pretty big part of the claim against Walter was that his harassment had recently caused a young girl to commit suicide.  That is a huge thing to say, so obviously I wanted to verify it.  The girl's name was Lucy Williams, from Wrexham, living at that time in an assisted living facility in Somerset England.  I think it took barely 20 minutes of work to conclude that she was still alive and well.  In fact she was interviewed for an article this year, so you can hear how she's going these days if you want to visit the following link: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-44741905

    Huge portions of the claim against Walter were shown to be lies, but does that prove that none of it was true?  No, but as before, it causes a huge hit to her credibility.

    By the time I even began my investigation (on 3/12/2016), Walter had already been banned by our head moderator.  Myself and the other mods were not let in on that decision at that time.  I presented my findings as my investigation was underway, and I'm told by Dark that at least 1 other mod weighed in with his concerns about the claim against Walter.  Nothing changed, and all evidence against Lori's claim was ignored.  I pushed it for a while, but eventually gave up and life moved on.

    A few times over the years, something would bring this topic back up among the moderation team, and I would toss in a few jabs re-expressing how unhappy I was about how it was handled.  Nothing changed.

    Smoke-J's article may be considered a bad thing to many, but I will say that it's the first time in years that the Walter/Lori situation was resurrected so strongly that something could finally be done about it.  Among the mods, I pushed and pushed to get Dark to publicly (at least between all the mods) answer questions about how he reached his decision in that case.  There was a lot of avoiding, because it was apparently unreasonable for a person in a position of authority to be questioned about how they performed their job.  Continued public pressure in this thread is absolutely the reason things didn't just go away like every time in the past.  I am grateful for that.

    Dark finally did answer my questions in front of the moderator team, which was good so that it was not me saying what Dark thought or did.  I wanted them to hear the info directly from him, which is the only way to do a proper examination.  Armed with the answers to his questions, on the 18th of October I called to have Dark removed from his position as head moderator.  I was rewarded for my pushing by being excluded from the moderator conversation for about a week.  When people started talking to me again Dark had stepped himself down from his moderation position, but I continued the push.  I do not believe someone can just run away to avoid an investigation, especially not when someone may have abused their power.  An open and honest investigation was needed to determine that, and stepping down was not acceptable to me as a way to avoid that.

    To very generically summarize the answers Dark gave, the only thing that mattered to him was that 2 people told him the same story.  He admitted to never investigating it, never fact-checking it, and even said he ignored holes in the claim that were too obvious to miss.  He did not look at the logs because he felt they were confusing, and the problems of the dead Lucy Williams was considered unimportant.  Through every step of the way, Lori was described as being credible, so credible in fact that only her word and a corroborating friend would serve as proof.  I may be wrong on this next part, but I don't believe Dark ever bothered to listen to Walter's side of the story.  That was not specifically stated in his answers to the mod team, so please take that last bit with a grain of salt.

    Everyone makes mistakes, but not all mistakes are created equal.  Some mistakes do not affect someone's job, others cost someone their job with the option to quit and save-face, and lastly there are mistakes that warrant a person be fired and not given the option to claim they quit on their own terms.  Even when we volunteer to do a job, we have a responsibility to perform that job in a certain way, and should be held accountable for straying from what is expected of us.  Being in a position of authority, given the power to Judge and punish people, we are expected to be even more fair and unbiased than everyone else.  I personally believed that this was handled so poorly that "firing" him was the right thing to do, but the majority voted to take away his position while letting him step down gracefully on his own.  I wasn't happy, but sometimes votes don't go your way.  The mod team approved Dark's stepping down post, which painted him as someone who did the right things at the time, given the information he had, and has the bravery (I'm injecting some sarcasm here) to admit he may have made a mistake now that new evidence has been discovered.  That entire thing was complete bull shit, and by the looks of the praise it generated by other members, it totally worked.  I've shared these insights because I MAY have been able to accept someone walking away from the consequences, but I can not accept someone twisting words to actually benefit from their failure.

    Past success is a factor to consider when someone does make a mistake, but I am forced to question the past success just a little bit.  The step-down post showed that when a situation is presented falsely, you can get failures to seem like victories.  I could say that someone handled the last 10 issues admirably, and only messed up on this one, but how do I know the others weren't failures dressed up to look nice?  Does 1 clear cover-up mean that past successes were actually failures?  No, not at all, but 1 cover-up does make you wonder.  Like the above examples finding holes in the claim against Walter, it doesn't prove the whole thing is wrong, but it sure does lower his credibility.

    So that pretty much finishes up this post.  People are not going to be happy with me about the things I've said.  People who knew about these issues did not want them shared publicly.  Even Dark, who has been avoiding this topic for a long time, may finally post to say he's unhappy that I've said these things.  We'll see how it goes, and I'm not happy I had to be the guy to do this.  No one else was willing to do it.

@273, people will be unhappy at everything you say. You can't please everyone, you can't help the world. And this exact behavior reminds me of a prior post I made on this topic -- no moderator should be allowed, anywhere, to execute actions that could cause damage to a member of any community without some kind of governance system in place. No moderator should be allowed to ban someone, for any reason or duration, or permanently, without getting a quorum of approval from the other moderators. Even administrators should have the same restrictions. No one should be "above the law" and every situation should be investigated. Will it cause longer drama in the community? Yes. Will it generate better outcomes for the community as a hole? Yes. I don't give a damn who you are, what power you wield, or whether your god himself; if you hold a position of authority, you are held accountable for every action you make, and every action you make is watched closely by those who are above and below you. Even if the action seems like the most logical course, investigation must occur. If you cannot do that, if you do things off of a whim, if you always take the "most logical action", you are not fit to be a moderator, much less an administrator.

Well said Aaron.  None of us should have ever been stuck dealing with that situation.  If only every mod had had the good sense to drop things that were not related to this forum, or our problem.