Medieval & Fantasy Minecraft Roleplaying

Greetings Explorer, Navigate into the Lobby!

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Be sure to "Get Whitelisted" to join the community on server!

An Explanation

Squidziod

Kid Charlemagne
Mystic
Retired Owner
Squidziod
Squidziod
LegendMystic
What The Hell Just Happened?

Our community was attacked yesterday evening by disgruntled former members of our staff. Our Discord, Planet Minecraft, and voting sites, were all deleted. These are the only things which were affected by the attack. This attack was possible because our ex-staff members retained passwords from previous work on projects related to these services. Our security in all cases has been checked and updated accordingly. The Discord has been restored, and will continue to be worked on in the coming days. Tickets have been opened with PMC and MCMP to restore our public listings and vote sites. I am told we already have success with PMC.

The people who are directly responsible for executing this attack are Rygan (Discord) and Arken (PMC, MCMP), but the motivation extends beyond these two individuals.

Early morning on Saturday the 27th, an argument broke out in-game that a number of players either witnessed or have heard of through word-of-mouth. This argument was followed by two bans, both on the server and our forums. This event is central to the chaos in the preceding days. The first of the two bans had been decided on several days prior; the player in question being a nefarious and unsavory person who posed immediate and serious risk to the community. This player’s name is omitted because this post is highly visible and additional publicity is against the wishes of the victim. After the volatile exchange between the player and several others, as well as several staff members, the first ban was enforced early.

In addition to the offending player, a second player was also banned. The design and intent of the first ban makes this a necessity; both players share a living situation. Testimony of those that interacted with both players in the past, as well as a past history of such behaviour, informed me that the second player’s in-game account(s) were very likely compromised and being used by the banned player. At the time of writing, their living situation is such that the second player’s accounts must be considered accessible to the first player, and banned accordingly. At such time that this living situation is no longer shared, this second player will be welcome back.

This incident has caused a lot of confusion and justified apprehension from our players, and the silence from Staff thereafter did not helped. The truth of this is that the ban happened early, and spontaneously—without the instruction of Moderation or myself. Shortly after the first ban, I made the call to follow through with forum and Discord bans. Scardrac, the admin responsible for executing the ban early, has already resigned. Participating staff member Arken, too, resigned. The remaining staff which participated in the heated display before and after the bans, will be officially warned for their conduct by Moderation.

Through all of the chaos and the unprecedented actions, I stand behind the bans. There was good cause for these bans, and the emotions behind them are valid. However, we still have our rules, and the players can still expect them to be obeyed.


Following the bans, debate among Admin began about the details and how to handle the situation. At the time, I believed that the public fallout from the bans would be minimal, and it was strongly in the interest of the victim that no public announcement be made. I declared to my Admin that no public statement would be made, but that players' questions would instead be answered privately and personally by myself. I also told Moderation that no punishments were to be rolled out on those who participated in the early bans, because I supported the ultimate conclusion of the bans.

This morning, Tuesday the 2nd, I was made aware by my Staff and Admin that the situation had progressed into a swell of confusion and anger within the community, as witnesses to the original event and others looked for answers they couldn’t find. The decision was reached to draft and publish an explanation to the players.

Rygan, Arken and Scardrac were vehemently opposed to this course of action because it would humiliate the victim. While attempting to draft an acceptably sensitive announcement, which was planned to be distributed via our Discord instead of Forums, tensions boiled over and the two aforementioned actors carried out their retaliation. Their accounts were subsequently demoted. Since then, they have all severed ties with myself, personally, and presumably with the community at large.

As Owner, I take responsibility for this outrageous sequence of events. There were numerous poor judgement calls on my behalf before the bans, and after, which ultimately allowed this damage to be done. I have never seen emotions run higher, and I have never been faced with a more challenging situation. I wish that we were walking away from these bans in a way which did not fracture the community, but instead united it. It is my sincerest regret and most significant failing, that we are in this place instead of riding high on well deserved bans.

In the coming days, we will be looking and listening to the community to try and help people get their footing again, and to address concerns. People, there’s no way to deny it: this has been a close call for us. We need to pull together to move forward into our future, whatever it holds.

My Discord (JUMP#2179) is open for any and all who want to chat.

Thank you,
Jon
 

ToastySpam

Chairman of the Procrastination Committee
Legend
ToastySpam
ToastySpam
Legend
From my perspective I think procedures should be put in place for if something of this ilk (be it more less severe) were to happen again. I don't really place a significant amount of blame on anyone involved (bar the two banned ofc) as it seems like an unprecedented chain of events that spiralled out of control.

The fact is, however, that this is a site with a lot of traffic and a lot of moving parts (i.e. staff and players). Something of this nature could easily happen again and in that case I don't believe any staff member should be in the position where they have to make such a consequential decision on the fly. Similarly, if well-forged systems were in place instructing on how to deal with announcing a situation like this to the playerbase, then the whole discord/votesite fiasco might have been avoided entirely.

TLDR: There should be more concrete guidance/training given to staff on how to manage circumstances like this.

But again, considering this is the first time this kind of thing has occurred, I don't place any blame on anyone. You were all trying to do what you thought was best, and I thank Squid for his transparency here.

Edit: I am unaware of whatever actually happened on the server with regards to singling out the bannee. I'm also not totally clear on what the bannee specifically did (for starters, in the original post I misinterpreted 'victim' as a person that they had hurt, not them themselves). Because of this what I've said regarding blame doesn't apply to that specific part of the chain of events, as I just don't know what happened.
 
Last edited:

Lenore

Bird, Knows What's Good
Retired Staff
Len0re
Len0re
Legend
Hello! This thread is being bumped for another announcement, in regards to some disappearing posts.
A staff account has been compromised - the situation is being evaluated, and necessary measures are being taken to prevent any further malicious actions.
We thank you again for bearing with us during this time.
 

Lovelyninja567

Ur mom
Legend
Retired Staff
Pronouns
She/Her
lovelyninja567
lovelyninja567
Legend
Here we go again. I want to make it clear that I am not defending the banned player and I am not seeking an apology be delivered to him.

Rygan, Arken and Scardrac were vehemently opposed to this course of action because it would humiliate the victim.
I still stand by my point that if these three truly wished to avoid humiliation for said victim, then they would not have bullied the banned player in the first place. By doing so, they created a hostile environment which only brought attention to this victim's situation. I might even argue that the banned player is also now a victim, however different in a sense. They became a victim of bullying because of the actions taken against them before their ban. This is not saying he is worse off than his victim, because he is not, but it does not make this any better.

Again, reacting so harshly does not create a place for change. It has instead made the community of Hollowworld very torn apart and furious. Instead of carrying out the ban properly, which would have very likely gone over so much better, more fuel was added to the fire. This banned player now has something to hold against HW.

Now it is known, but I will say it yet again; I do not want to play on any server that allows their staff members to bully the players, to act above the rules and as if they are better than any single player. We deal with this enough IRL from jobs and companies and individuals. In all honesty, warnings do not suffice for the staff members that enabled this act of bullying to occur serverwide. Not one member online put a stop to it, instead nearly encouraged it. Not only that, but they encouraged it through several discords outside of the Hollowworld discord server. This is staff, they are supposed to advocate for the players that enjoy their work. They are supposed to be the people we rely on for our issues that come up because of something that has happened on the server. How do you expect anyone to trust the entirety of staff now that there are known enablers on the team? Because I certainly don't. Matter of fact, I only trust approximately five staff members. Five. That is insanity.

Finally, let me restate my absolute love for HW. I have enjoyed so much of my time on this server and I have created wonderful friends. Make the announcements sooner, roll out warnings and punishments sooner. I know that we are all a bit busy with our lives, but that does not truly excuse allowing such hatred to brew in our community. And last of all, take care of yourselves. Take care of your mind and body, take a break, relax. Do better in the future, be better. I know we all can. :heart:
 

Gloonkey

Loyal Servant of Altera
Here's my 50p, warranted or not.


I've got to say, it really disturbs and upsets me that Arken and Rygan would have bullied another player after being banned & proceeded to destroy several of the server's institutions after their demotion. But I also have a few opinions of my own to make.

1. Does the banned player, for being an abusive, manipulative and generally unpleasant member of our community deserve bullying? No. While I understand Arken and Rygan's frustrations with this individual, I think it speaks volumes to bully another person for this. Violence breeds violence, and blood cannot wash away blood. You guys know me for writing a lot of edgy poetry, and I consider this a confession of mine - but I use HW to take out any frustrations or worries of mine out ICly, mostly through the books I write, but to use your staff position as a plinth to exercise power over others is a responsibility, NOT a privilege. That being said, as someone who was fairly close to Arken (he donated in my name to make me a Patron & we had a good few events together), I can't find myself feeling anything but disgust that the staff members in question would knowingly worsen an already volatile situation by attacking someone who was known to be atrocious in response to emotional prodding, and henceforth put more people at risk: Even externally to HW.
2. The response from Arken and Rygan to essentially try and destroy HW in response to the staff calling them out for not using proper procedure is nothing short of abhorrent, and as I can't say enough times, I condemn the actions of them both. Any sympathy I might've had for them having an emotional response to an abusive individual was thrown out the window the second they abandoned procedure and went out of their way to become just as bad as the perpetrator. I'd call this a misunderstanding, had their action not been to metaphorically throw their toys out of the pram and throw a tantrum like a child. This is why we have a minimum age on HW, and why we should ALSO follow procedure. Without organisation, things fall into chaos. As a victim of abuse and manipulation myself, I have to say that when these sorts of situations arise, it only puts the abused in yet more danger. The staff have a duty of care and responsibility to the players, and failing that, then I don't see why any individuals who fail that criteria should have any kind of position or authority.

My opinion is that we should have more regulations, rules and anecdotes in place to prevent situations like this. We should learn from this, but we should also take a philosophical viewpoint into account. HW is a community for the people, but it is also a safe space for all involved. We are a diverse community with varying viewpoints on things, but one thing we can not, under any circumstances, tolerate, is deciding things on our own opinion and then going off on a limb. That's what caused the downfall of other communities which I was part of years ago, that I will not name for obvious reasons, but that anybody who has known me for long enough will be fully aware of the ones I'm referring to.

I hope we can all learn from this, and I hope as well that this situation does not devolve further into chaos.
 
Last edited:

Baron

Sovereign
Retired Staff
My opinion is that we should have more regulations, rules and anecdotes in place to prevent situations like this. We should learn from this, but we should also take a philosophical viewpoint into account. HW is a community for the people, but it is also a safe space for all involved. We are a diverse community with varying viewpoints on things, but one thing we can not, under any circumstances, tolerate, is deciding things on our own opinion and then going off on a limb. That's what caused the downfall of other communities which I was part of years ago, that I will not name for obvious reasons, but that anybody who has known me for long enough will be fully aware of the ones I'm referring to.

I hope we can all learn from this, and I hope as well that this situation does not devolve further into chaos.
The thing is, it's against the rules to delete server resources. More rules won't help so much as better security practice: keeping the credentials for these services locked down tight and rotating them regularly. Limiting total exposure so nobody except whoever needs to work with a service can access those creds.
 

Gloonkey

Loyal Servant of Altera
The thing is, it's against the rules to delete server resources. More rules won't help so much as better security practice: keeping the credentials for these services locked down tight and rotating them regularly. Limiting total exposure so nobody except whoever needs to work with a service can access those creds.
That's what I inferred by more rules. More restrictions to make sure that only those who have the authority to do something are capable of doing it. It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever that they be given those powers if they don't need them, even as an emergency, wherein there should be an individual contingency. Relying on "common" decency has been proven time and time again that, sadly, it doesn't work.
 

Brown

Lord of Altera
Pronouns
They/Them
Doctor_Brown
Doctor_Brown
That's what I inferred by more rules. More restrictions to make sure that only those who have the authority to do something are capable of doing it. It makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever that they be given those powers if they don't need them, even as an emergency, wherein there should be an individual contingency. Relying on "common" decency has been proven time and time again that, sadly, it doesn't work.
I'm gonna stop you right there. What happened this weekend was very much an outlier that no one could have seen coming. Just because one major event happens does not mean that we should stop trusting people. In fact, many of my problems about the server have stemmed from the feeling that there is a lack of trust. Staff members being locked out of things just because it's "not their department" is ridiculous, and will cause more problems than solve them.
 

Gloonkey

Loyal Servant of Altera
I'm gonna stop you right there. What happened this weekend was very much an outlier that no one could have seen coming. Just because one major event happens does not mean that we should stop trusting people. In fact, many of my problems about the server have stemmed from the feeling that there is a lack of trust. Staff members being locked out of things just because it's "not their department" is ridiculous, and will cause more problems than solve them.
If there is a lack of trust, then that's not due to people being locked out of other abilities that it is not their job to do, considering that we don't have that system in place yet.
A lack of trust can be caused by low faith or other issues, but it doesn't help that you have some people who will abuse their stations, and create situations like this where the playerbase loses faith in staff. Restriction is what gives them their credibility. Policing by consent is the ONLY way that authorities should enforce their powers. With great power comes great responsibility. While I agree that it damages individual power, staff are not the Avengers. If there is an issue, they have another team full of a half-dozen people who give their time and resources almost daily to HW that they can help them with. Autonomy makes sense in smaller communities where there are fewer moving parts, and where an individual problem can be attended to easier.
 
Top