Resetera staff pedophilia accusations: a good faith discussion thread

[Samban]

Dear moderators: I am aware of your staff communication and I understand that you do not want to feed rumors. I get it.

But please, locking threads about it is not the right approach. We have had countless examples of why this is a bad response that tends to backfire spectacularly.

I have seen and gone through all the content myself, and I agree that some of it is disingenuously framed.

However, some of it is at the very least ambiguous enough to warrant discussion/investigation.

Please let the community talk about this. If there was any wrong doing, look at it as an opportunity for staff and the community to grow and improve.

This story is out there, and given some of Era's tendency to have strong reactions to moral issues, it is imperative that staff be as transparent about everything as possible.

Let this thread be a general-purpose discussion thread, regardless of the merits of the accusations.

Please don't lock the thread. Seriously. Please don't do it.

 

[CharlesAznable]

Wait what?????

 

[Finale Fireworker]

First of all, despite the title of this thread, such accusations have not been made against staff. Neither were staff involved in any of the discussions being discussed in this server. Second of all, malicious and disingenuous attacks from troll farms are nothing new for our community. We have never hosted discussion about these kinds of attacks. There is no reason to validate these attacks by giving them attention or a reaction - which is their exact purpose. As for our statement on the matter:

While we do not usually entertain coordinated trolling campaigns, this one is egregious enough that we are happy to clarify things for the benefit of our members: This is an attempt at retaliation for a ban. The member who posted this material was permanently banned from ResetEra for repeatedly trolling topics related to bigotry:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/pe...support-read-threadmarks.105466/post-18914051
https://www.resetera.com/threads/th...creasing-among-young-men.108713/post-19409092
https://www.resetera.com/threads/pe...sphobic-line-of-dialogue.112234/post-19968073

Not long after their permanent ban, the member DM'd staff accusing people in a Discord server (which staff have no part in managing) with highly inflammatory accusations. The Discord server in question was created by community members to discuss video game sales that range from NPD numbers to Media Create sales results. At the time they presented only a few screenshots as proof, which did not seem to support the claims. After a review of the member's bans made it clear that this was likely a revenge troll attempt, communications were cut.

At least some of the new screenshots appear to have been conveniently cropped / dishonestly framed to make the intent of certain statements look completely different. For example one user was made to look like he was saying he loves Europe's lower age of consent, when he was actually replying to a conversation about the French dub of Metal Gear Solid. However, as the result of our own research and reports from members in good faith, we have issued some permanent bans for members who exhibited inappropriate off-site activity. This has always been our procedure.

The original screenshots now appear to have been taken down; we'd like to be clear that we did not request their removal. We do not know who took them down or for what reasons.

While it's more than a little upsetting that anyone would try to leverage a topic like this for petty revenge, we feel that any reasonable observer will recognize it as just that. We are not interested in lending it any more oxygen than it has already received.

While we have not actioned any of the users who have asked questions about this matter publicly or privately, the wording of your title is highly inflammatory and misleading. This suggests that this thread was made as a bad faith attack against staff. This thread has been locked.