Some of you may have notice a
slight problem at EvilAvatar and the ensuing exodus. Now some of you may not have seen it happen. And some of you may be confused. Now I will try my best to explain the situation.
Ten days ago, Schnoogs, Random51 and HotCod were banned for disagreeing with Evil about PC Gaming and the phrase Magic PC was brought up in reference to some people, according to Evil, being able to play games on settings that their hardware shouldn't be able to support. Magic PCs became a meme among the TF2 crowd and some of the major PC guys. Then last night J_Arcane once again disagreed with Evil on PC gaming, bringing up the magic PC in the process and got banned. However, not many people noticed until he brought it up in IRC since it was pretty late and the thread didn't catch on fire like the other one.
Anyway, today iHap made a thread with a shopped picture of a Magic the Gathering card featuring a Magic PC and Evil claims he meant to fake a ban on iHap but really banned him. iHap made an alt account "Magic PC" that got IP banned. I brought this to light in a thread about the downtime when someone brought up Magic PCs and iHap's banning. Several members where angry at this but the mods insisted he wasn't banned and everyone was confused. That thread was soon locked and Jackel started another thread about using pikes and many references to Magic PCs in an attempt to show disapproval to the recent events. This thread was eventually locked and deleted as well. Disgustipated tried to make a more civil thread where many posters expressed their concerns about the state of the forums. When fitbabits tried to unban iHap his IP remained banned due to the alt. Several members including myself were talking to him in IRC and told the fitbabits that the repeal of the ban had failed. Evil eventually responded pretty much that he was sick of people harassing him. He called iHap a liar while not fully understanding what had happened in the joke ban process and soon after closed and deleted the thread.
End result is that many active members felt that they were longer valued by Evil Avatar and wanted to leave the poor moderation in favor for something run more as a community, preferably by BAPenguin as he seems to do most of the work for the site anyway and most feel that he is a good, level-headed leader. Some of us found our way here while the Team Fortress server has moved to LiquidRain's RainWave.cc, most of the PC gamers have gone to Voodoo's ImmortalMachines.com, and others have gone to Bap's Cooptimus.com while we wait for a definite solution and possible a reconciliation with Evil.
Notable people that have been banned or otherwise:
Schnoogs (Banned)
RandoM|51 (Banned)
HotCod (Banned)
iHap (banned, but lifted)
Voodoo (resigned position as mod)
torrefaction (resigned position as mod)
Disgustipated (demoted from mod)
If you have any other questions, let me know because I may have forgotten something but that should pretty much sum it up.
-Evan Wilson
The next day there was an entirely new issue that I was not involved in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Murphy
tl;dr
He deleted threads to try to make an issue go away instead of sharing information about it. I won't be a part of that.
I wasn't pushing his buttons. I wasn't trying to stir up trouble. I had only been awake and on the forums for about fifteen minutes, and I was trying to figure out what was going on, and he kept deleting my threads. I didn't understand why and asked, and he deleted that thread too, and never responded.
Much later, he claimed I had been posting threads "designed to irritate the site owner" and had gotten "all butthurt when they got deleted". I was already gone by that point, however. He also stated he deleted them to squash the conversation.
I will not support a site where the owner and head mod believes:
1: the users have no right to question him (while technically right, it's a question of personal principles. I won't support that attitude.)
2: he decides what we can and can't discuss (again, technically right, since it is his forum. However, I won't support it, when he gave us Totally Off-Topic, Subscribers Only, Etc.)
In comparison to some of the other things that happened, it really wasn't a big deal, it wasn't a huge argument and event like it was for some people - but it was enough to show me what kind of person I was throwing my hat in with, every time I visited the site branded with his name. Deleting my goodbye was just adding an insult to injury.
I don't want to throw around Godwin-esque phrases and make it seem like something bigger than it was - but it was censorship, and as a writer I don't think there is much in the world that will get me angrier faster.
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Now, nearly two months later:
I will try to keep this short. As of 9/30/2008, Bapenguin, Fitbabits, AgtFox, Psykoboy2, Sandman, Ten19 and Sl1pstream have all resigned their moderator positions at Evil Avatar. This, along with the promise of a new haven, prompted many others, including myself, to permanently sever ties with Evil Avatar as it is right now.
The site set up by Bap and the others is
http://colonyofgamers.com.
In case of confusion, break glass
Linear Mode
