Jayde, you have made some bad assumptions.  This is the full text of the private message that was sent:

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From:  Shadowfax
Sent:  Sunday, December 1st, 2019 at 06:20:27 am
I have removed your message from board 7 regarding the credit lottery
for violating rules 4.6 and 4.7. Do not repost it or attempt to
otherwise advertise any such lottery again.
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The full text of the rule sections was not part of Shadowfax' message, and was added by Nocturnus above for clarity.

All three of Draak, Shadowfax, and Morpheus have the authority to make calls like this when I'm not available and they deem it to be a pressing matter.  They do this knowing full well that I may reverse their decisions later, but that doesn't mean they should sit on their hands when they think there might be a problem.

Everybody here, including Nocturnus, did what they felt was the right thing at the time.  There's no need to be accusatory.

Woooooooo lets all take a deep, collective breath if we can.
First, at post 18: Dentin, thank you for the way you handled the situation.  I cannot honestly know if in fact your having stepped in as late as you did and in the way you did means you, in fact, had just then found out about it and decided to take a definitive stand, or if you were already aware of the situation to some degree and were attempting to do a bit of preemptive damage control, but I'm going to go with the former in an attempt to show that I, at least, believe you were in the right in how you handled the situation regardless and not assume that you did it for any other reason than the lack of diplomacy we were shown on AA.  As I previously stated above of Jayde, I happen to feel like he is sometimes a bit hard headed and immovable in his decision making when it concerns moderating the forum and the like... I can't vouch for him or speak against him outside of this forum, obviously, as I don't know him in RL.  If I took the time to perhaps read some of Shadowfax's writing, I might find that he is perhaps somewhat in the same mold, cool and calculative and the like and, perhaps he simply felt that he had to deal with the situation right there and then.  These are all things I cannot know for sure, and text sometimes gets in the way because we can't know how and in what tone the message is intended.  More to the point, for blind people, at least, we're kind of sort of somewhat left at the mercy of synthetic voices, and the wording, plus the voice itself can sometimes bring a much more powerful punch to an already emphatic message.  Perhaps there was even some fear that money had already been contributed to the lottery  and that there was a need to stop that from continuing as soon as possible in an attempt to further protect AA players in question... I'd like to go on record right here and right now stating that no such thing has happened, that no money has exchanged hands, and that any money which is sent as the result of this topic or any other discussion concerning this lottery will quickly be refunded if in fact it were to occur.  IN addition, while it may or may not make a difference, post 1 of this topic has been edited to include the fact that this lottery has been canceled.
In light of all of this, I'd just like to reiterate my apology above and state that I myself am sorry for any inconvenience this idea has generated.  It pains me to know that anyone would think that I'm out to, in any way shape or form, hurt other people in this community or on AA, as I've always tried my best to show players over the past 9 years of my being there that I am willing to be as generous is humanly possible, and in this community, because it has previosly entrusted me with 400 dollars to give away 20 copies of a popular game.
@arjan, post 20: Could of should have would have is the phrase of the day.  I tried to point out in 19 that you can never know what, if anything is going to result out of your trying to do something in a good way.  As such, I'm neither blaming the AA staff for anything that took place, nor am I going to sit around holding grudges because of anything that took place.  While arguably the situation could have, on many levels, been handled differently by Shadowfax, I am also fully aware that the situation probably wouldn't have had to have been handled if I hadn't allowed it to be there to begin with.  That fault lies with me and with me alone.  One has to keep in mind that for every action there is a reaction, and sometimes you have to learn how those reactions are going to affect you and others around you.  It has been said before that you might know that it hurts to get burned, but until you are confronted with it, you may not know how it hurts to get burned.  I fell into that category all on my own out of naiveness, stupidity... Take your pick.
@Jayde, your anger on our behalf is appreciated, but please try not to be too hard on the AA staff as the result of it.  As a past moderator of this site, I can't begin to really imagine the kinds of requests they get on a regular basis, but I do know that people on here who have previously been banned from here will actually contact me off forum by some means in an attempt to see if I was somehow the weakest link and could get them a pass back into it, as if my reputation were such that by my own word then head admin Dark would be willing to unban them or something... I really have no idea why.  I've also received hateful communication for bans I had previously issued for good reasons, even on Alter itself!
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is simply that sometimes we don't know what mods or admins are already facing, what kind of decisions they may already be tasked with, what kind of things might be going on in real life that may have had an affect on how they dealt with this or that situation.  I'm in favor of letting this go because in truth, at some point in time or another in our lives, we all need forgiveness for our misdeeds and errors.  I hope that someday I can get this and the AA community to colaberate on something big and beautiful as was the case with AHC.  It's a shame that things were taken the way they were, but as I said above, I am certainly doing my best to understand why.

OK then, the SJW has arrived. God, is this how people see me when I go off on people? Because, if so, i hate myself about a hundred times worse than I already do.

Jesus, like it's any of your business how they run their game. Also, if you're gonna jump the gun like that, Jayde, when something doesn't go the way you'd like, then perhaps you shouldn't have came down on Oriol for his pessimistic post, because it's essentially the same thing.

I didn't particularly like the wording of that message either, and if those are the rules, perhaps they could stand a rewrite to say the same thing with a more neutral tone. With a game like AA that involves real money, they must adhere to the law far more than a game that doesn't, because there can and will be repercussions if someone reports them for some financial transgression. So, everything needs to be above board.

Still, if something I didn't like happened, I'd be likely to tell people, just not drag the entire staff through the mud over it. This just makes me cringe so hard.

I guess I'm just hung up on the fact that you can let yourself off the hook whenever you want, but you're the one constantly telling others what they're doing isn't OK. Who holds you accountable? Because you don't always make the best choices.

I guess the bit where I kind of just held myself accountable for making a mistake went past you?

I guess the fact that I own my shit when I'm wrong doesn't occur?

Everyone makes mistakes. Absolutely everyone. Please don't get the idea that I think it's fine if I fuck up while it's not fine if others do.

But just because I made a mistake here, that doesn't mean I'm incapable of judging when others make errors. Same goes for the rest of us. If screw-ups disqualified us from pointing out one another's goofs, then we'd all be incapable of judging right from wrong.

I was wrong here. It was not for the same reason that I chased another user for. Simply put, I went off on someone based on an assumption that was not correct, then backed off when I realized I was mistaken. Very much an "open mouth, insert foot" moment.

Wow! I never new this topic would be so explosive when I clicked on it to see what it was.
I was like, huh, Alter Aeon is running a lottery? that's cool I woooooo *gets blown backwards out the door*.

Amusement aside, I wanted to contribute my own 2 credits worth to the conversation, (and that's virtual credits, not AA credits!)

I come from a background on Cosmic Rage where I can empathise with Dentin in many respects, in the fact that the staff on cosmic Rage all have equal slices of the authority pie. This, often, prevents favoring, biasness, and is all around a fantastic system. this also means that each of us has the power, should a situation occur, to step in and say wo. Take five, and lets rethink about this.

I must admit, right through reading all that kept circling around in my head was "communication breakdown" right up to where Dentin said it, and I just nodded to my computer screen like "yep."

I think the thing is, there are good and bad points to this entire thing, and its such a shame it ended like this, if I may, I'd like to summarise and see if I understood the entire thing:
*good point: This was a great idea, and for a great cause
*bad: Should have waited for Dentin's go ahead, before publishing anything public at all.
*good: Opinions are taken account of, and, while I skipped a couple of earlier posts, concerns about transparrency seemed to be being addressed
*bad: Shadowfax's reaction may have been slightly over the top, however! He may have been acting within strict guidelines, for example: He could have, instead of removing the post, temporarily hid it with a message like: "this message has been hidden until approval from Dentin has been reached." Now, he may not have done this, because AA may not yet have the facilities for this.
*good: Dentin is aware of this issue. It's always good for the Big Queso (that's big cheese), to know of problems like this, and to be able to trace them right through.
*bad: Why is everyone jumping on Jayde? I feel like I'm being left out. I like Jayde and feel like I'm missing something every time I read a "lets jump down on Jayde" post. Don't like feeling left out. Sniff.

If I may make a suggestion to both sides to finish up this post, I hope it will find them in good standing!
1. Nocturness: In the future, perhaps make sure, when grouping with other muds or organisations or business, to get their 100 percent, signed and dotted paper okay to go ahead first, before announcing anything public and getting your fingers burnt. I can't tell you how many times I've done this, and now learned from it. Companies have various policies, rules and licences and may not be willing to grant leeway on something, but others they may. Better to ask first, rather than have to disappoint others.
2. Dentin: May I suggest an internal assessment, just to ensure all the members of staf are fully up-to-date with Alter Aeon customer facing policies and guidelines, to insure misunderstandings and such like this through tone don't happen again?

thanks for reading, and sorry for mangling the spelling of everyone's name other than Dentin. Y'all should have nice to spell easy names. Like Bob.

Oh look, the random political attacks have arrived to the derail the topic. unlike many, many, many others that have made a wrong accusation, Jayde retracted their position and apologized. most others tend to be constantly belligerent until the ban. Anyway, can we just move this back to discussing...

   ...Plan B. Is there plans to adjust the lottery to offer something else? Other options seem to be a lot more limited with the payout, unless you can do what Liam managed and get some sponsorship from game creators here to give away game keys as prizes. Granted, my knowledge on the legality of such a raffle is not something i have looked up yet.

I think Cosmic Rage would be open to such a venture, but, am not entirely sure if the player interest would be large enough, sadly.