Must Read Regarding the Recent Bans

It’s been one long day. There are wildfires burning just north of my home, I have the stress of moving a state over to my new job and there was a tragic shooting close to one of my friend’s house.

It’s been a rough couple of days and now this?

Wow. This both surprises and does not.

It surprises me because I was at least on very good terms with many of those people. I liked Cad, Morgaine, awney, Getus and Hrae and as far as I know, they all seemed to like me.
I’m not bitter about it though, you admins do your job in keeping this place running. While I’ve never been a part of the staff on this site, I administered a couple wikis years ago and had the unfortunate decision made to ban more than a few toxic users. It’s never an easy decision.

That being said, it’s pretty unsettling to see how many people were mentioned in this secret server. Who knows how many others including myself have been mentioned. If anyone has a problem like thinking I’m a stuck up asshat or whatnot, say it to my face in a man to man conversation. I have no problem in that aspect even if I outright disagree. The problem comes from when people blatantly shit talk behind my back. That’s a pretty low blow.

I’m not surprised either. Here on the Internet, there are no secrets and someone is bound to find out sooner or later. It’s a good warning to all of us to take heed and be careful what we say on the Internet. No telling if it’ll come back and bite you in the ass.

Thank you LV staff for bringing this into light.

 

Hey everyone,

Figured I could come in and shed a little light on this area since I've been with LV for about 4.5 years now (shocking to think of honestly, time flies) and have a different perspective to offer on a few things.

While I haven't posted or been "active" in the community in a long while, LV has been a place for me to come to time and time again no matter what because of the people here, especially Ryan and Ben. I came to know them on a first-name basis early on because I was an eager teenager, as were they. These are the people that have poured their hearts, time, effort, and their own money into this community to keep it. I want to point out that there have been times in the past that if there wasn't enough donations to keep the server running, these two would reach into their own pockets to keep the site available--completely at their own expense. There was a time where one of them didn't have $5 to spend on dinner for family and himself and I did not hesitate to send that over. Why? Because even with their human faults, these guys are genuine in their endeavors and commitment to making LV great.

Vigilance and I haven't had a conversation longer than niceties, but I can undoubtedly speak highly of his character and drive to make LV the great place it is.

What happens all too often in these communities is cliques form and all it takes is for one person to start torching your hard work and destroy the community you were not only a part of, but actively enjoyed. I can't even tell you guys how often I've seen communities get closed down because of issues such as these, and I can honestly say that this wasn't the first attempt (and sadly probably will not be the last) at trying to accomplish this toward LV. Need an example? Look for traces of Prosecutor and Nator. Look around for Scrafty. Find Eclipse. Find Doima.

There is so much consideration that goes into making decisions like these and they are NEVER easy. It's very easy for onlookers to say "if I were in that position..." when we clearly aren't. Look, I am in no way saying that the staff members of LV are perfect and the same goes for the decision they made regarding this situation. However, I want everyone to strongly consider something:

If you had felt or otherwise been personally attacked, and that same person/people was/were actively trying to get others to feel the same way or unravel your honest efforts, how would you feel? If you really were in their position, would you also fear being burned for banning people that were doing this to your community and work simply because all that you are willing to show (for reasons of personal humiliation and showing that you still want to protect people you thought were friends) indicates the reasons you have are personal only?

To wrap this long post up from an old-timer like myself who was admittedly on the staff and hasn't been around much lately, please take into consideration that whether or not you have strong opinions on it or not--you should feel strongly about keeping this community around. You don't have to agree with every decision that the staff make, but you should empower and encourage them to make decisions that, if not made, would be a detrimental part of this great community.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk.

 

I... I can't believe this. I thought quite a few of them were really nice people who want to make LV a better place. I never thought they would be like this behind our backs all along. This, honestly, is kind of making me a little more terrified of the world.
It's a sad truth, though. Nobody, especially not you admins, should ever have had that happen to them. At yet it does.
What's been done is done. I hope they'll learn to stop being toxic towards others, although chances are slim.

 

I Really...Really Shooked In The Second Chat/Secret Server Chat.

I Can't Believe A Admin Can Be Hurt Just Like That, I Always Looked To Admins/Super Mod As A Example. I Seriously Hope This Will Stop Although It Will Take A Miracle.

But I Am Not Going As Well Because This Is Where I Can Confidently Revel One of My Secret Which Is I Like Cassini Spacecraft A Lot And Released My Hidden Potential as A Freelance Writer Besides Showing My Drawing.

I Will Protect This Community If I Can And I Swear!

 

This feels weird.
I'm probably not as hurt or as surprised as some other people though… For those in that case, I am sending all my love in a virtual hug.
I only "knew" two people in there, one who had been once kinda rude for what seemed to me like an insufficient reason (so I guess I didn't really like them), and the other who had talked to me in the past about some people/aspects of LV they disliked. And I didn't know about the others well enough to be really touched.
When the person I will not name was talking to me, sometimes it really looked like their feelings were being hurt. And maybe they were! Maybe every single person in that server had reasons to feel like that. But whatever those were… what they did is not okay. They could've confided their issues to the people concerned, but they kept them inside and in the end they needed to take them out. But I know for sure that this is not the right method. And if they were trying not to hurt directly the people they were talking about (which can be doubted…), this thing was bound to be discovered at some point, and it probably hurt way more this way…
Maybe if these people had shared their problems with the people concerned, it could just have been solved.
So… I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I'm deeply sorry to everyone who has been hurt. It is not the first time someone who was liked ended up not being what we thought at all. I wish it would never happen again, but it is unfortunately probably bound to… If it does, I hope we can stay strong together, even if it's difficult to trust people with the internet. But LV is one of my favorite places, I'm pretty sure to have made at least one lasting friendship here. I will do my best for it to stay the place I like to be in.
Hug to you all. <3

 

I just don't know what to say,
it's just so disappointing and upsetting to read...

But hey, I guess the show must go on, right?

 

I don't really know what to say to this.

When I opened this thread, I guess the member I least expected to be banned was Awney. I hadn't really known her for two long but she always commented nice things on my profile, we had discussions about art and writing, she drew my profile pictures (and one was a gift). In a lot of ways, I felt like she was looking out for me, which was maybe something I really needed because I was (and kind of am still) going through a rough time because of moving. Being able to go on LV and see her spreading so much positivity for art was one of my favorite parts of my day.

She donated massive amounts of pokepoints to me (like some other users, but especially her) so I could acheive VIP status. I had intended on trying to pay her back as soon as I earned it back up, or at the very least make some gift art, but I guess that's kind of out of the question now.

I understand that these users were banned for a reason and I'm not trying to defend them. But I am shocked and maybe a little saddened. Some of the comments from the screenshots were incredibly malicious and I'd never thought that I'd see those kinds of things coming from (what seemed like) such sweet members. Maybe I'm just naive...

Anyway, I know LV is a strong community, and even though this ban is a little more significant than others that we've experienced, we always rebuild and move on and stick together through the hardships. Now that we've seen these people go, I really want to do my best to make LV feel as welcoming and positive as possible. This is like my second home, and I want to be inclusive and make sure everyone feels safe.

 

...damn.

That's really all I have to say, honestly. To be completely honest I'm not too surprised with a few of these bans because the very few times I talked to some of these members they seemed a little... "off" per se and generally didn't seem very positive about the site, but some of the others, especially awney? Just... damn.

Regarding the art side: out of my free will and generosity, I had drawn one of awney's ocs as a gift and poured my heart into making a piece for Cad during the summer secret santa, and now I wish I could just take it back because if I had known that they were slandering other artists, I wouldn't have gone through with either. I remember awney calling my little art style one of the most unique she's seen in her lifetime and that just made me explode with happiness, but truly, I wish she had never said that now. If it means being the "idol" of a lying backstabber, I don't want any part of it, period. And it baffles me: someone going around and telling about how important it is to love art only cared about her own.

Regarding the admin side: what the actual fuck. I have immense respect for Ben, Ryan, and Vig. The reason I've stayed on Lake Valor for almost two years now is the admins who work their asses off to keep improving this site. Serebii's mods/admins were honestly a joke but LV's are different because they actually care. And yeah, we can all admit they've made mistakes but they're only human, just like us. Humans make mistakes, get over it. Seeing these people say that our lovely admins don't deserve any respect is beyond me. Especially when talking about Ryan, the literal founder of the site, who really opened my eyes to how beautiful the world and its people are the few times we talked about travelling the world which made my trip to Europe this summer that much more eyeopening.

So, where does this leave us? Honestly, for me, I'm really sick of being backstabbed by this community, with the whole Eclipse thing and now this, two times people I've gotten fairly close to on the site have been not what they seemed. But I'm oddly hopeful about the state of our community now: now that we've gotten rid of the people who tear us apart, we can come closer than ever and become that close, tight-knit community I fell in love with almost two years ago... or something like that, I'm not too well-versed in inspirational things to say. But anyway. I'm sure we can pull through this together, now that the people who truly care about this site and its members are the only ones here. And me? I'll try and be a real source of art positivity now that there's a hole to fill as soon as I determine who my real friends are here: y'know, the people that don't lie and all.

I'll do my best to help this site move forward from here in any little way I can... I just urge of everyone to do the same and if you don't like like something about the site, you're not obligated to be here. On my final note, I'd really like to thank the admins and mods who found out about this and took action. I know it was hard, but thank you for helping the site keep growing with real positivity.

this has been skittle's emo ted talk bye

 

So seeing this is quite the shock. I dont know any of those nicely except getus I guess. But getus was also just an acquaintance but I never thought they had so many things going on in the background. They had thos side of them is a little scary. Its not hurtful to me since I wasn't really close to them but I can still feel the sadness. I know it must have hurt so much for admins to see this and other close users.
But as far as speaking bad goes, we all do that but this.....You hate someone for something is okay, but getting people involved in it and instead of confronting, shit talking about them. Being nice in front people, being like this at backs is not acceptable. It hurts to see they actually had two sides of them.


Now as far as trusting people and staying here goes, I am not really online here and I may have not my word here, but I try my best to be back, to be with all the beautiful people here. We cant doubt everyone 'cause of few people nor we can trust everyone based on few members. I guess we dont know about the truth until truth shows itself. But for that, we have time. For now, I'll just say I appreciate every single member here. I hope I dont see more of these depressing shocks for a while at least lol
Thank you

 

I understand putting on different faces, as I do that often enough, but this went too far. I probably never really registered on any of their radars but I still am second guessing compliments done by them now and how much of it was actually true.

 

Man...
I feel bad not being here not knowing what had been going on the past couple of days. Cadd and Getus i knew for a while but was never really anything but aquantinces with them. i've been kinda inactive as of late so i didn't really know awney, from how everyone reacted to awney, i guess she always gave off the illusion of being positive, and as a person who always thinks people can always get along if they try, it hurts to see stuff like this happen in the background. I'm truly sorry to anyone who were friends with any of these members and felt betrayed.

Especially to the Admins/Mods here. Being a person who will have been a member for 4 years in 2 days, i know you guys work really hard to make LV as great a place as can be, and can understand from a perspective of getting backstabbed. In another server we had the exact same thing happen with people whom we thought we could trust, but it ended much worse overall.

I'm not going anywhere though. I've said time and again the reason i always come back is because of the wonderful community, and even though the last couple of days proved that not everyone is how they seem, i believe in this place and i believe that we can get through this.

 

I was just looking through the site when I saw Morgaine's banned. I was like "what on earth?!" I was in a complete shock ok.
Then I looked up in this thread and seeing that awney and cadd are banned as well, again I was like "what on earth!? Awney????!!"
But then, reading through the post and screenshots made me a bit angry but upset at the same time.
Why would they say Ben is flirting?! Garbage! He'd never!!
Anyways, this sure is a huge shock and a matter of unhappiness for us all but reality isnt always sweet.
*sighs*

 

Gawd I thought they were nice enough on LV, Hraes seemed like a nice enough guy so this is shocking to me. What even is happening now?

 

Where exactly were they disrespectful in lv? What they said in an outside server is their own business, so you can’t really lump it in with lv rules. You really can’t consider that harassment or bullying either since they didn’t do anything other than talk amongst themselves. Also, just because they were all in the same server doesn’t mean they were all advertising.

 

It doesn't matter where they're disrespectful. If they are actively spreading toxicity and insulting and specifically targeting Lake Valor members, they will be punished according to our rules here. No matter who it is. It absolutely was bullying and outright insulting our community. One of the banned members said they wanted to stab a member here. That is not acceptable in any way, no matter how you cut it.

You may disagree with our stance on this, and we will hear your opinion; however, this is our stance and it is unlikely to change. There are consequences, good and bad, to every action. If they were not prepared for these consequences, they should have been wiser with their actions.

Intentionally advertising is a permanently bannable offense. If they linked a LV member to a Discord server that was not Lake Valor's, it was advertising. They all discussed advertising on Lake Valor and how to avoid getting caught. They approached several members in an attempt to get them to join. It is because of LV that they were able to make that server. If they didn't want consequences here, they should have kept their attempts at influence away from Lake Valor.

I'm sorry you disagree with this decision, but the permanently banned members mentioned in this thread will never be allowed back on Lake Valor under any circumstance. Though, I hope it's not needed, we will be adding a rule regarding toxicity to clear these types of situations up for the future. Those who actively harm Lake Valor's community will have consequences.

 

They deserve their ban. Altho they were really nice to LV, their this type of negative behaviour cant be tolerated. I still cant believe awney can be like this. She was really nice and I really liked her.

 

• Venting to people about how they don’t like other people is not being disrespectful.
• Why is bring up LV’s flaws to other people wrong?
• Why is it okay for the rules to apply to them outside of the community?
• You can’t consider something that didn’t happen to you bullying and/or harrassment.
• Can you prove that ALL of them were advertising?
• How is it okay for members to talk poorly about the banned members when its actually the same thing you banned these others for?

 

I agree Cherry, I really liked awney from how I knew her I didn't expect that kind of behavour same with Cad I didn't know Getus very well but from the few conversations I'd had with cad he seemed like a nice guy.
I'm a little shocked that people who seemed to love and care for this site said such Malicious things. To be honest it kind of disgusts me. I find this place a great escape from stress and I've already made friends on here I feel like I'll be friends with for a long time *Nudges Cherry3Fairy* hint hint, nudge, nudge.

Why they would even think things like that about people who created and manage such an amazing place baffles me. I think though (if my opinion actually counts since I'm new and all) that this is just going to bring the rest of LV together. It seems like such a closely connected group of people and I think as a community we'll grow stronger, learn from this experience and hopefully it won't happen again any time soon.
And to those people who the banned people disrespected on their server:
I hope you don't take it too badly since after all everyone else here is willing to be there for you.
I understand how feels to be betrayed by someone you thought a friend so if anyone needs someone to talk to I'm always open to listen.

I've decided that I'm going to try to bring as much happiness and positivity to LV as I can now! Just to show how much I care about this site and the amount of work the admins put into it.

I also hope that this doesn't come off as I'm speaking ill of the banned people. While I believe their ban was deserved I still have respect for the contributions they did make to lake Valor.

 

Figured I'd add my piece since this is still a thing.

Obviously it's a shame that this happened, for a group of long-time users to separate into their own group to talk about their negative experiences outside of the server. Sure things escalated, they always do when you're talking with like-minded people. Some bad things were said, everyone can see that.

However, it's disturbing to see that everyone is essentially overriding their positive experiences with these people over this one revelation. Years of positive experiences. People aren't so simple that finding out that they talk trash behind your back means that every single nice thing they said or did was automatically fake. Nobody is nice 100% of the time, nobody likes every person without issue, and nobody has nothing to complain about. In fact, a lot of 'nice people' will talk trash behind your back because it's a way to vent their frustrations without hurting you directly. It's a coping mechanism and it's incredibly common at all ages. School, work, within smaller friend groups and communities.

No duh it sucks when you're the object of their frustrations but there's always going to be someone that dislikes you. Nobody is perfect. Throwing vitriol at these people for what could easily be considered a mistake is gross in my opinion. They've already been banned, you don't need to kick them when they're down. By all means give support to the people who were 'targetted', but I don't think it's fair to further punish these people.

I highly doubt anybody sensible would do it, but if anyone thinks it's necessary to chase these people outside of LV to berate them about what they said, GG you're also harassing and bullying people.

I don't make the rules here and I can't force anyone to listen to what I say but I hope at least that everyone can act like a decent person. Nobody wants to be slated for making a mistake. People do bad things sometimes, that doesn't make them evil.