Dm-Horus

[Mez]

As some of you may already know Dm-Horus has had his GM powers removed, been set on Moderator preview, been banned from the shoutbox, banned from IRC and had his hosting suspended.

This is all due to his public, relentless bashing of the OP3:Genesis project.  He was given warnings, but chose not to heed them and continued.  The rest of the admins, got fed up with his behaviour and this where we are at now.

We do not like others constantly publicly, bashing other peoples projects, that's not to say that an open opinion and debate in the forums about its progress is not allowed, just that as always we don't tolerate excessive flaming.

Now Dm-Horus has a few arguments to his side of the story.  Included in those are the conversations that the admins (of which he was part of) have on IRC and on the forums.  They are kept private from the rest of OPU for a good reason.  We might not like the amount of progress or the direction that a project is taking, but publicly we will support it, and try to help keep it going, it is someone else's creation after all.

Yes the 'admins' may have some grievances over certain issues with members of the Genesis team, but we tend to leave them as private grievances and sort most of them out privately or not mention them at all, if we were over critical then no one would start a project in fear of being beaten down.

Dm-Horus however decided to take these private grievances and make them very public, we have moderated the majority of it for damage control.  By that I mean, reducing the upset caused, and not forcing other people who don't want to know about it to have to.

Now a personal opinion.

I am tired of this s***, yes progress in Genesis seems slow, but I don't have the time to actively help or do a full project myself, so I can't complain.  Yes the Genesis team have done some stupid things with their hosting that has pissed the server admins off, but that's a private thing that we sort out directly with Genesis ourselves.

Personally I don't believe that it gives Dm-horus any right to 'kick them' into doing more work, although as far as some people have been concerned it has 'forced' Genesis into releasing some more of the work they have been doing.

Can people just try to get on?

Throughout this post I refer to:
'admins' - meaning all the current IRC Admins / GM's

When I say 'Genesis' I am referring to both the whole team and individuals.  In this way I do not have to name names, but yes Stormy has done quite a few different things to piss off the server admin.

Rules for reply:

No excessive logs please, if you want to post a log do it in another thread, or at least double post with the log first and then your reply.  This way I can split the logs into another topic. to make things easier to read.  you may by all means quote the logs, in context.

If you don't have a clue what's going on, you probably don't want to get caught up in the politics, make comments by all means, but you can expect sharp replies if you post/assume something that is wrong.

I have no problems with anyone posting, even if they are on moderator preview, I won't edit a constructive post if I don't have to, keep the flaming to a minimum please its a discussion not a point the finger topic.

Edit:  Changed the language of a line to clarify its meaning (Can people just try to get on?).

[dm-horus]

Im curious to see if this will make it to the forum. I suppose it depends on who gets to it first.

First off, none of what happened was discussed with me. I pasted ONE url in the main chan in the early morning ONCE and within seconds I was banned. The only reason I found out why was because Nok1z hopped on irc and asked what the cause was and reported back to me. Throughout the whole affair I have had the clear understanding that this is more of a vendetta done out of spite. I have evidence of this:

My "punshments" may come days after the supposed "offense".
I am almost never informed of why I am being punished and have never been told ahead of time.
The punishments usually consist of banning me from a medium that the offense had nothing to do with ie: deleting my subdomain because I pasted a URL on irc.
My permaban happened only when other admins had left IRC. I am assuming Freeza did the permaban, here. My ban came just minutes after he parted irc.
The language people used toward me after I was banned made it clear they have been hiding their motives.
I have posted about a half dozen replies to topics since my ban and although I am on mod preview, none of them have been approved. I am assuming they were simply deleted outright, even though the content is innocent and in regard to clean topics.
Upon my ban Freeza deleted I had made in his biped walker thread. Those comments were made days (and weeks) before my ban. I have noticed other replies to other threads made long ago have gone missing as well. Why would he need to delete them? How is this acceptable?

All those are clear signs that this has little to do with due-course and more to do with spite.

Also, for the offenses I am accused of the punishment is extreme. I pasted a url in the main chan ONLY ONCE in the early morning when only the regulars (afk lurkers) were on. My punishment has been to have my entire subdomain deleted, permabanned from IRC, set to moderator preview and banned from shouts. For a few hours immediately following the ban I got an sql error on the main page (http://www.outpostuniverse.net/) and the forums, which is a classic sign that my IP has been banned. The fact that my subdomain (http://www.horus.konker.net) isnt even a part of OPU leads me to believe it was done just to kick me when Im down.

This does not seem like a reasonable punishment or even ethical. Considering that people keep bringing up ethics I have been shown a type of ethics I thought we were well past.

The punishment itself is my only reason for even posting here. I understand why you all dont like what Ive said about Genesis but this is not called for. Even if Ive been lying through my teeth (which I havent) this is beyond anything that has been done to someone at OPU and I pity that it has come to this.

The fact is, my motivation for all of this is because I believe the way Genesis has been handled (not just by the project members, but by people outside it as well) has created a philosophy of "us versus them" and paranoia. I dont hate Genesis. I was offered control of it twice and I did not take it. If i really wanted to kill it, I could have easily done it. I just want us all to work together. Part of my anger over the subject is that every attempt I have made at creating a place (be it a project, online meeting place or just a new philosophy) where we can all cooperate, I have been accused of trying to take over OPU or plotting something subversive. I have had people come after me with bloodlust simply for posting a help request in a game engine forum.

Yes, I have been irritating. Yes I have been a jerk at some points. No I have not lied through my teeth. The people who know what I know are well aware of the facts I am working with (those who dont know have no reason to comment on this) and understand that maybe taking away my mod rights is justifiable but I dont see how any unbiased person could say that the rest is deserved.

 

[Freeza-CII]

Upon my ban Freeza deleted I had made in his biped walker thread. Those comments were made days (and weeks) before my ban. I have noticed other replies to other threads made long ago have gone missing as well. Why would he need to delete them? How is this acceptable?

Put up proof I deleted them.  We have have hacker look at the logs to see who deleted them.  I know damn well i did not delete said posts.  Only the posts that had the spam images. In which none of them were in the Multiped walker thread.

[BlackBox]

I will say the following things:

1) Horus's unix account was not deleted, it was suspended (and if you attempt to go to the webpage, it clearly says in big bold letters "This Account Has Been Suspended," nowhere does the word 'deleted' appear. Suspension is simply a lockout of the account so that no one can log into it. Since he is effectively banned from the rest of the site there is little or no reason to keep his unix account active (a possible security risk).

2) He was not banned for simply one offense, but a whole string of offenses that took place before the ban. Claiming to be "helping" OPU by trying to censor and control what the Genesis team says seems counter-intuitive or even destructive to say the least. (And none of the messages that Genesis posted that were removed seemed to echo the idea that anyone on the Genesis team is the "CEO of OPU" or that Genesis was in any way an officially sanctioned project, as he often claimed). Furthermore, personally, I received a few complaints from members of the Genesis team wanting to know why their posts were magically disappearing. In the end, the thread looked like Horus was abusing his GM powers in order to sway the topic of his thread from Genesis, to a game that he was planning to develop (a game for which content or code never ever existed as far as I am aware. At least Genesis has content)

3) He claims that the immediate event that caused the ban (posting anti-Genesis images) was not offensive to anyone. I point out that what is safe to post (non offensive) and not safe (offensive) on this forum is determined by the admins and the mods, and is written in the TOS that everyone must agree to upon registration:

Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this BB. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this BB to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this BB.

I believe most people would agree that a large sig banner that says the words "Genesis is the fail" with a picture of one of stormy's early head models next to it can be considered offensive or inflammatory.

Just because Horus does not find it offensive or abusive doesn't mean other people don't either. As the keepers of the forum (mods and admins) we have to decide whether something is offensive or not.

It's one thing to criticize a project in private. As far as I am concerned that much is fine (how will a project get better if people don't consider its pros and cons?) but it is another thing when someone gets up in public and says something like that (especially being a GM, who is supposed to be impartial and neutral to things when looked at in the public eye).

Some of the abusive things he said extend to specific people as well. From the incident involving the banning of Fenrisul (which I again have to apologize for the actions of the entire admin/mod team being guided by Horus's incomplete / untrue "evidence") up till now. If a person has disagreements with a particular person, it's not the entire community's business. They can take it up with that person and that person alone. There is no need to post statements shunning the person for something someone doesn't agree with publicly, as Horus has done on occasion.

It's also hypocritical to state that the admins don't have to answer to anyone but then demand reasons when he is the one being banned.

Anyway, I think the bottom line is this--

Horus: you're welcome back when you can understand what is and isn't acceptable in the real world. This is not a game and believe it or not, there are real people behind the messages on the forums and IRC who might be hurt by some of the things that have been said.

To everyone else: I apologize that we haven't dealt with this more rapidly.
 

[Leviathan]

I dont think a member of the admin team should be bashing anyones projects like you have clearly done. Im sure you were asked to stop and to keep it to yourself. I think its justified that you are no longer a admin.

We will not tolerate public flameing of projects in the community. And planing to have the banner you made in your forum sig is over the line weather you are a admin or not.
 
If Galactic no longer wants to give you hosting that is up to him. All our hosting is provided by him and we as a community or admin team have no obligation to provide hosting to any or all members.

I hope you can still be a member of the community and let back on IRC.

[Fenrisul]

Some of the abusive things he said extend to specific people as well. From the incident involving the banning of Fenrisul (which I again have to apologize for the actions of the entire admin/mod team being guided by Horus's incomplete / untrue "evidence") up till now.

<3,  sa'll good.

Anyway, I've personally bashed OP3:Gen and attempted to "kick" them into doing more work (by attempting to explain why a more public approach is appropriate in this kind of 'limited' (as in its the only one) community.  However; I have also offered my assistance and am currently working with them as much as I can to continue pushing forward.  

Public bashing of a 14 (15?) year old kid's 3D face model is kinda pathetic and shallow minded in the first place... He's learning.  Personally? I wouldn't have posted it until it looked better; especially not as a "Development picture", but that doesn't make it a public pissing ground.  I don't walk over to the middle/high school campus and harass the students.  Let em learn from their mistakes and if you have criticism make it constructive...  

Final note:
horus.konker.net's data should be ZIP'd and sent to Horus as a courtesy at least;  as a datahost myself I understand how important data can be to an individual and endeavor to keep it intact as long as possible (Up to 2 years in some cases) after an account goes inactive/unpaid/suspended.  I'll host Horus temporarily until he finds a new home if necessary.  I'd hope that courtesies like this are more commonplace on OPU in the future.
--Fen

[dm-horus]

Freeza, there is no way for me to prove the replies were deleted because I have no access to them. All I know is that there should be more than a half-dozen fresh replies from me on the board and they never showed up. You know Im pretty much unable to prove anything since any one of the admins can screen anything I input here. Like I said, it probably depends on who gets to them first.

Like I said in my reply, this is mostly up to your opinions. I do know the things I have said about Genesis are harsh but Im sure all of you understand that hindsight is 20/20. All of you have bashed Genesis at least as badly as I have, you simply havent made it public. The images and banners that you deem offensive were shown to most of you and every admin who saw them had a jolly laugh and at no time was I told to stop or get rid of them, not until I was banned. Hacker told me the morning I was banned that I needed to make more productive arguments toward Genesis if I was going to do it at all. So I wrote up that loooong essay of mine and instead of posting it up full-text everywhere, I simply gave some people a link to it. That act is what led to the permaban. Its harsh, brutally honest, and it does offer solutions. I am sure only the first paragraph was read and whichever admin decided to ban me simply assumed it was a big long rant. Typically rants have accusations and opinions, mine has facts and even solutions. I thought that was better than simply saying Genesis sucks.

I suppose that is the main gripe - that instead of saying "dude, thats not cool knock it off" I got mostly good reviews from the peanut gallery, giving me all thumbs up. Then suddenly Im banned.

We have all seen that sometimes it helps Genesis to have a kick in the pants but looking back on it, youre right it wasnt nice. For my part, I have probably not helped the environment of hostility that started me on my campaign. I know I deserved to lose my GM at least. However, I still feel that the way this was carried out was done in such away that little could be drawn from it.

I dont like that all this happened without anyone speaking to me about the problem. It seemed like nobody really wanted to solve anything, but just brush it under the carpet like it never happened. It felt like people were trying to cover their asses by simply making me disappear.

I dont like that the ones lecturing me on the appropriateness of the material were also the ones laughing and giving me thumbs up. It feels like Im being made out to be the ONLY person who has issues with Genesis, which is far from the truth.

What Im saying is - yeah Ive been a jerk. I went too far on several occasions. But I am not alone. I will not get us into a log-war and drag this on for days or weeks so Im just going to concede and apologise. I apologize to Genesis for the attitude I have had toward them. I tried to be the helpful one, trying to help guide the project but I got impatient and resorted to more extreme measures. Sorry guys. I also have to apologize to the community. Just the fact that this thread is public isnt helping OPU any. Whether or not I come back to OPU, I think this thread should be moved into the archive or somewhere else so this isnt the first thing people see when they hop on the forums.