Hullrot Hub Appeal

Ban Appeals Hub
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Username: cherub

Dehubbed server: Hullrot

Link to dehub announcement: [2024/09/26] Dehubbing of Hullrot

Reason for server being Dehubbed:
Hullrot was used by Rane and those swept up by his words (including myself, admittedly) to drive forward a harassment campaign against Wizden and it’s founding and contributing members. The server also has a history for being notoriously unmoderated.

Reason the server should be rehubbed:
Good afternoon,

We removed Rane shortly after the dehubbing of EE as they went on to blatantly harrass and target wizards den staff with false claims of pedophilia, we took down their channels and messages in the discord where they had been harrassing wizards den and other people/parties.

Additionally we have brought in new moderators, a new head moderator and new maintainers to keep the server clean and prevent attempts at organising harrassment against other people/parties - this cleanup comes at a staff level, with new word filters, rank structure, and guidelines.

We are willing to work with wizards den to rectify any other issues that exist that may prevent our rehubbing.

Thanks.

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Textbook case of a harassment community hurriedly sweeping and covering up the YEARS of its wrongdoings and expecting anybody to buy into the joke that it redeemed itself in a matter of days.

I would give them a year of consistency before even considering a rehub.

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While I can see you’re passionate about the topic, there’s nothing to ‘redeem’. Rane strung us all along and I tolerated it with the hopes he’d get some work done on the game. Then it became apparent he had no intentions of doing so and just wanted to use the server as a ‘staging platform’ for smear and harassment campaigns, which neither me or senior Hullrot staff felt very keen about.

This is not a ‘we’re so sorry, take us back’ post, Hullrot does just fine without interacting with the main hub, this is an olive branch. I’m intending to smooth things out and rebuild bridges.

You also mention years of harassment, but Rane had only been Community Manager for a few months, and he didn’t go “let’s make a drama channel and I can bash on Wizden, lol” off the bat. He boiled the frog slow, and when he was done, we were left with wrecked relations to the main project and nothing to show for it. It still makes me angry.

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Hello. It’s been quite a while. Is this going to be processed any time soon? I can be reached at @fleshangel on Discord if there are concerns.

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Hub Appeals will be processed once someone in the PM Team is able and willing to handle them.

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(post deleted by author)

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It’s been a month; I don’t mean to rush anyone, but we’d like a response by now, or an update that someone has taken the case.

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Right, so. One of the main factors in why Hullrot was banned was the behavior of its upper staff towards other servers, including both SS13 and SS14 servers. Since policy is for the victims of hub rule violations to be left anonymous by default, evidence for the initial dehub cannot be publicly provided, and affected servers can’t be named (though those affected are free to publicly comment).

Additionally, since the hub ban ocurred, a significant number of SS13 servers in Host Chat have recorded repeated instances of Discord ban evasion from Fleshangel, who has consistently attempted to both advertise Hullrot, and proliferate misinformation about SS14 (particularly surrounding the reason behind the dehub). This is overt astroturfing, and has been an immense annoyance for SS13 communities who’ve been targeted by it. Due to Host Chat’s confidentiality agreement, the specific SS13 communities affected by Hullrot can’t be named directly (even if policy here allowed for it), but the list of servers with the same exact experience is sizeable enough that a description of these actions doesn’t uniquely identify any server affected.

If Hullrot were still hubbed, these actions would likely have been considered a 1.1 violation, as these communities have made it explicitly clear that they don’t want Fleshangel to advertise Hullrot in their spaces.

Even while this appeal was pending investigation, an SS13 server that had no prior familiarity with Hullrot had reported that Fleshangel joined to advertise Hullrot, and harassed their moderators when reprimanded for advertising.

I’m hoping that it’s obvious why these actions inspire the polar opposite of confidence. The hub rules have one single overarching theme: do not cause problems for other communities. Hullrot has proven through the actions of its upper staff that it’s continuing to be a problem for other communities despite being hub banned, and despite the claim in this appeal that it’s been cleaning up shop.

This case is more to do with Hullrot’s relation to the combined SS13 and SS14 community than it is Hullrot’s relation to Wizard’s Den specifically.

In order to return to the hub, Hullrot is going to need to put more work into maintaining a clean track record. Due to the current circumstances, alongside the recency of incidents, this appeal is unfortunately denied.

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If we’re following policy strictly here, wouldn’t we need to go through the strikes system? Hullrot was dehubbed with no strikes, and with no communication to any of our staff members. One day it was hubbed, and the next it just wasn’t, with no clear warning inbetween.

I’m not sure how I feel about these policies being waived to remove us over something as vague as “we don’t like your behavior.”

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Building ontop of this; the goalposts keep being moved, now Hullrot is being punished for actions performed OFF platform? During my previous conversations with Wizden staff, the general consensus was the issue of Rane being present, and my notoriously lax stance on community moderation, which were eventually both fixed; but now the entire case is built on player soliciting in projects that aren’t even tied to SS14? Is ‘being in poor standing with unrelated communities’ such a grave violation of the terms of service that it warrants bypassing the strikes system directly, as well as dehubbing the entire server without notice to myself or senior staff? This leads me to believe that there IS no actual reason to maintain the ban.

Nevertheless, I didn’t think this needed to be implied, but all advertising is done simply because we are not on the hub and rely on word of mouth and partnerships to perpetuate player circulation. I give my word that I will cease all informal advertising.

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