Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=105585&page=20#198 Author: Oiseau Time Posted: 3/24/2023 at 7:40 PM I understand the worry about losing access to old themes but to me it just seems kinda... wrong. While yes, these players are no longer able to access the pets, many still did spend countless hours getting these themed and special pets. Some even paid actual money for them. To just set those up for others to use for breeding/buy seems wrong. It's similar to the many, many old players who no longer play and have tons of old and rare themes - setting their pets up for others to use wouldn't be the solution. It feels a bit like swooping in to profit off of another's work. I feel like instead hosting a special even to bring back old themed would be better, and not in a "weel of themed" kind of way. Maybe every fest a couple of species could have an older theme reintroduced. This way it's possible for others to collect the theme that is rare to access while still allowing the players to keep what they earned.

This would be a great idea! Much better than putting the old pets up for breeding. I agree that it seems kinda wrong.... I mean, I'm positive the economy will be fine-might be iffy for a little bit, but it will settle down. Much better than the alternative of someone actually getting hurt

Oh this is sad..also, surprising to see a few 'known' players doing this kind of thing. Although I shouldnt be terribly surprised in this day and age.

The transparency tho, the honesty from you Krin and Fai, and being very upfront, is absolutely amazing. This right here, out of any game I have ever played in the last 20 years, is the reason I am still playing. The caring, the concern for your players, and your game, I hope to see this game still going and still so very strong in another 20 years +.

Thank you for being such great admin and taking care of business as it needs to be dealt.
These were a little hard to read, certainly made me sad. I am so sorry yall had to put up with this for as long as you did.

Concerning the comments on being worried about what might get you banned, If it helps, most offsite services have a ToS that prohibits bullying, doxxing, anything that could be crime related (like swatting).

Discord also prohibits it, from their ToS page:

Dont use the services to do harm to yourself or others. Among other things, this includes trying to gain access to another users account or any non-public portions of the services, infringing anyone elses intellectual property rights or any other proprietary rights, exploiting, harassing, bullying, spamming, auto-messaging, or auto-dialing people through our services.

As an example, you agree not to use the Service in order to: post, upload, transmit or otherwise disseminate information that is objectionable as outlined in our Community Guidelines;defame, libel, ridicule, mock, stalk, threaten, harass, intimidate or abuse anyone ~Terms Of Service

Something to keep in mind when on other services, and the different ToS you may have agreed to without fully reading (I should read slower on these sometimes myself!)

I think for Sylestia, you'd be fine when venting or complaining elsewhere if you want to. The problem is when people start advocating to target others in some form or fashion.

I really don't see an issue happening with pricing pets, our usual chatter, etc.. these peeps were complaining for a very long time and Krin didn't take action. It wasn't until the personal attacks started that steps were taken.
It's all going to be fine for us still here, and certainly the economy here is going to be just fine too!

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=105585&page=21#210 Author: Rixva Time Posted: 3/24/2023 at 9:58 PM What a mess. I've been here a long time, and seen a lot of prominent players come and go. Of the people I know are gone now, I knew and liked a lot of them. But I'm not here to comment on who does or doesn't "deserve" to be banned, because that reasoning is between the admin and the banned player. The point of the issue is, the owners of a business felt personally and financially attacked by a group of customers and took action to protect themselves and their livelihood. Pro-tip: If you are so fed up with the mechanics of a game that you feel the need to "vent" to this degree, then maybe the game in question is not for you anymore. It's okay to stop playing a game you loved in the past if it doesn't bring you joy anymore. This is the point at which a mature person disengages. If you can't accept that, and decide that you have the right to change the way the game works for thousands of other people, then the owner of the game is well within their rights to remove your ability to affect their source of income. If you can't accept that, and decide to belittle and harass the owner of the game, then you need to do some serious thinking about why you want to hurt others. Everyone is entitled to their own physical and mental well-being, even if you personally don't like them. It does not matter if what you said was a "joke" if the person it was aimed at didn't find it funny. The right to swing your fist stops when someone else gets hurt. I honestly don't know how to feel. I'm disappointed that a community I've always found so lovely had this going on under the surface. I will miss the people who are gone. I am glad I never saw this side of them. I'm frustrated that some people seemed to hate the game so much that they wanted to ruin it for everyone else. I'm exasperated and angry and sad. And if I'm feeling all of that as a user of the game, just imagine how Krin and Fai must feel right now. The lack of sympathy I am seeing from so many people is absurd. I'm rambling now, but if I didn't express this somewhere it would keep me awake at night. It probably still will. Everyone, please take care of yourselves. The world is full of enough negativity as it is. Let yourself enjoy the things you love, and step away from them when they stop being a positive element in your life. You deserve to spend your time on things that make you happy.

Thank you for providing a mature and well-rounded comment. We can learn together and get past this so future players have a welcoming place to go again. Just a fun pet game; if it is no more fun, take a break and maybe come back another day. Even more so when you learn to budget better, sometimes knowing when enough is incredibly important.

Pro-tip: If you are so fed up with the mechanics of a game that you feel the need to "vent" to this degree, then maybe the game in question is not for you anymore. It's okay to stop playing a game you loved in the past if it doesn't bring you joy anymore. This is the point at which a mature person disengages

Just want to reiterate this part. I see so many people (not on here, but on other pet sites) complain so much about the game, or talk about how they can't do anything due to X, Y or Z, and I just think 'maybe it is time to move on to another game that you might enjoy more'.

Sure, I understand it is hard to quit a game. I am still collecting interest on Neopets! I haven't played that game for like 5 or 10 years now, but still collect interest because I sunk so much of my time into the site and I still have one single forlorn hope that a miracle will happen and it will get better. But, there have been other games, that I enjoyed, that I had to quit because I wasn't enjoying them *enough* to justify playing them any longer.

I am still collecting interest on Neopets! I haven't played that game for like 5 or 10 years now, but still collect interest because I sunk so much of my time into the site and I still have one single forlorn hope that a miracle will happen and it will get better.

Yeah its just getting worse but the gameplay doesnt take long to knock out before you can play other games

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=105585&page=20#192 Author: Gravitas Time Posted: 3/24/2023 at 6:49 PM So I've been sort of reading these threads through the day, absorbing them, thinking and honestly... There was a lot of dark things going on under the surface. Bad mouthing other players. Harassing or encouraging others to go ahead and harass. I admittedly fell into that mindset for awhile. Until I woke up one day and decided I didn't like who I was becoming. That no good came from this sort of behavior. And I quietly left the original Discord server where these things were occurring with increasing regularity and severity. There was a kerfluffle, warnings were sent out. I saw them, I was in the thread sent out to multiple people back then. I was also warned and rightly so as my behavior back then was uncalled for. A couple of people were banned, and rightly so. It was a chance for /all/ of us involved in that, however in deep or peripherally, to do some navel gazing. So, I paused and reflected on my behavior, realized I didn't like it, it felt bad, and have flown straight since. Others, sadly, decided doubling down was a better idea. This entire narrative of "We did no wrong, the server was private" is disingenuous. Y'all know that what you were doing wasn't staying *in* the server. I might agree, however distasteful I find it, if all anyone was doing was venting and nothing else. But people were either engaging in harassment or encouraging other people to. In doxxing. In joking about swatting. In deliberately trying to crash the market to harm the game and get back at Krin. Ruining it for anyone else, just because you were mad at the site admin for whatever reason. You weren't doing it for any good reason. Don't try to pull that card. We can all see the discussions going on and the intent was clear. And those who were "venting" saw it happening and said nothing, did nothing. Complicity is just as bad as far as I'm concerned.

Since I haven't seen anyone else say it yet, I just want to say I commend your courage in admitting this, and in making and sticking to the choice to do better. That must have been very difficult, especially with so many people encouraging the negative behaviour, and some still trying to defend and excuse it.

I believe you about what you witnessed, and support you, and the other users who have discussed their experiences with this situation.

There have been several more thoughtful comments I agree with, Rixva, Jademeka, Lanfear and Fleuralilly's especially.

Anyway, hopefully the community can soon move on and heal from this unpleasantness.

I had been sitting down contemplating my return to sylestia with the upcoming Fae revamp when news of what happened broke. To say Im completely impartial to parties would be dishonest. I also dont envy the job of moderation - its truly impossible to please all parties en mass.

There are a couple things that I am hoping I can get some clarification on. So Krin Im hoping you can help me out here!

1) The mention of swatting or being doxxed is horrifying - this is one of the more serious allegations. I can empathize with fear of a real threat of this occurring. I can also read the message and understand how folks might interpret this dubiously - a veiled threat. But part of the reality is I also know this individual well and need additional context in that I know this individual to pride themselves on being articulate, proper usage of words, and demonstrating credibility as needed? I can also potentially read this as a Hey - Ive lived someone who understands what this is like on both sides of the fence. What it is or is not. That it can be a serious thing. Take my understanding of these concepts as you will based on that information (an offering of credibility and not bragging rights). I think the latter is worth considering. I know the user had a lot of love for this place - regular suggestions, streams, and talks of a YouTube channel to help promote the site and show strategies for content completion. I also know what her housemate has lived through and they wish to stay as far away from such things as possible. Was this user banned based on the above or in regards to market related activities?

2) Its my understanding your personal details were retrieved in a method I wont discuss. May I ask how you were made aware? If they were shared with additional individuals? And intent? I know the fear of privacy and safety being out of your hands can be alarming. I ask because I want both sides of the story. What Ive heard is someone wanted to notify you about the method to ensure you could protect/privatize your data and requests to share were denied. Id also like to understand more about why the legal follow up was distributed amongst a number of players as opposed to the one who sought the information if there was a perceived threat.

3) Impersonating someone else on social media shouldnt happen. From what I gather I dont think it was a case of light hearted fun and made obvious that it was a spoof of some sort. If I am wrong here, please feel free to jump in and let me know.

4) Let me preface this one with I am not sure if its a joke or not. I have heard a lot of differing things about the market. I tend to think Oh! Lowering prices? More accessibility isnt necessarily bad. But if there is a large availability of a resource or what have you, I might sooner argue a sink mechanic of some sort be implemented to reduce the number in the market. The market just needs a little creativity whether an abundance of this or that is introduced. Or dissuade/encourage users to and from particular behaviors. Perhaps if gear or items are plentiful folks recycle them for a number of points based on rarity and then trade them in for recycling exclusive items? Or maybe safari chips if you release a syelsti. More relative to general stats? I feel like there will always be inherent market manipulations. But there are things we can do to shift market focus elsewhere or take things out of circulation. I would like to better understand what constituted a ban relative to sylestia market.

5) I am not sure I am understanding the design critiques component of this. Someone offered critiques to an admin offsite regarding themes. They were seen as maybe unsolicited or rude? Is the offsite the primary issue? Were there other components contributing to this players ban? Are/were they also a part of the private discord owned by the admin? Did they get wrapped up in another part of this? Any additional information would be appreciated.

6) Personal issues between players are bound to happen. Whether disagreements or misunderstandings. No one should be forced to terms of an agreement that has changed - all the love to you and yours and circumstances. And the art community can be a tough place to run commission work - your work is valuable but someone not being able to meet the new terms doesnt make it worth any less. Take pride in what you create. I have admittedly aired grievances or thought I wont be selling offspring to that individual based on actions and characteristics they display that make me uncomfortable. I can say, I dont want to fund that behavior... Just offered a new player 5 themed valued at 25k for their pet they dont realize is valued at over 2 mil? My personal decision is not funding folks who run those scams. But by no means should this result in explicit verbal harassment or bullying. I think everyone can take a moment to be more empathetic and thoughtful with their words - myself included. I think it goes without saying Theres not an excuse to go and harass anyone for their appearance on their socials regardless of how much you disagree with them.

7) Everyone has had some critiques at one time or another. Again, thoughtful and respectful communication is key. Its hard to incite change the change you want to see otherwise. There are healthy ways to express these things. I know Ive said that you take a lot on your shoulders Krin. You have a team, but theres a lot of burden you wear alone. I contemplated what the scalability of Sylestia could be vs what it is today. I know this place is your baby, but it may stay small without more trust and support. Totally your call as well. Just food for thought.

8) Last one and Ill hush up. But can we shed a little more light on whats been called sweeping bans? Were any bans issued without warning/transparency in reason? Are they temporary or permanent? Is there an appeals process? Will the ToS need an update following this?

That being said. What has happened has happened. No amount of searching for blame can change that. But we can seek a better way forward. To err is human. And a high statistical likelihood exists that occurred on both sides of the fence. But its what we do after the fact makes all the difference and will set the tone going forward.