With regards to banned users.
3 years ago
Washington, USA

In late August it was brought to the Discord moderators' attention that a certain runner had been expressing some extremely abhorrent views in community members' Twitch chats, private DMs, and their own stream. After careful consideration it was decided that this behavior was in clear violation of rule #2 (No racism/sexism/bigotry of any kind on any platform) of the Discord server and the user was banned from the Discord. We would like to reiterate that rule #2 does not exist to punish people for having certain views; rather, it exists to ensure that present and future members of the community are respected. This should be a space where all walks of life feel welcome to participate in the discussion, action, and celebration of Mega Man X speedrunning, without having to defend core aspects of their identity.

Following the Discord ban the discussion was continued among mods of the x1 leaderboard. As far as the leaderboard mods were concerned, there were three options: we could do nothing, we could remove the times completely, or we could anonymize the entries. The moderators believe that a community driven leaderboard of self submitted runs is more than just some objective list of times, it is a representation of the community as a whole. As such, it is not required that any leaderboard promote users who engage in behavior that goes against community values. To that end, the decision was made to anonymize the time by removing the users name and stripping the video of all references to the runner. The run and entry itself will be preserved for the sake of posterity, leaderboard accuracy, and learning purposes.

Both mod teams realize that we made some serious mistakes. Most obviously, our communication of these issues was suboptimal and for that we apologize. However, we stand by our decisions and will continue do our best to promote a diverse, welcoming community full of all types of individuals.

Pear, FuzzBug and 8 others like this
United States

I want to state that even prior to this thread having been made, this issue had been looked into by site staff. That said, we still have not come to a conclusion on what, if any, actions will be taken on this, though in light of a few more recent events I wanted to state that we were aware of this situation for a bit. Do not confuse inaction with inattention, I suppose. The mass-ping on Twitter was a bit much, really.

To those questioning why the lengthy process, there are a lot of factors at play, a lot of opinions and facts to consider, and there are also thoughts on past and potential future precedent to set. There is a lot of internal discussion and debate on the topic, for many reasons. And while I'd like to say that hopefully we can find a solution that will appease everyone, I can safely say at the end of everything there will be people unhappy with the decision made. Such is life, and you aren't going to appease everyone at all times.

While I have reached out to quite a few people myself for thoughts and opinions on this, I know I haven't reached out to everyone. So, I'd like to ask that if you have pertinent thoughts on the situation, to share them via site messaging. Be concise, please, though.

Thank you.

Pear, FuzzBug and 7 others like this
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