Ban/Restriction Announcements

xRECKONERx · Post Post #513 (isolation #0) » Sun Apr 29, 2018 7:28 pm

mv_gimmick has been banned from modding Large Social Games for 3 months due to temporarily abandoning moderator commitments and blocking players/specs from communicating with him during Super Survivor Bros.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #617 (isolation #1) » Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:27 pm

davesaz has been banned from discussion forums for one month for making light of human rights, including equating homosexuals to Nazis and advocating for torture/inhumane treatment of human beings. He has already been publicly warned for this, and has recently faced a ban for similar reasons.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #618 (isolation #2) » Sat Nov 21, 2020 4:59 pm

Tayl0r Swift has been permanently banned for being the alt of an indefinitely banned user. They will need to be replaced in all games effective immediately.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #628 (isolation #3) » Fri Jan 08, 2021 6:34 pm

Donald Trump has been permanently banned from MafiaScum. We're sorry it took so long.

xRECKONERx · Post Post #636 (isolation #4) » Tue Mar 02, 2021 3:37 pm

Given new circumstances that have come to light under recent events, we are clarifying a ban that took place.

User votato was banned initially for the span of two weeks due to making inappropriate sexual comments. This ban followed a warning that was issued to votato because of user complaints.

An explicit timeline of these events has been provided by Untrod Tripod during a Speakeasy discussion; however, we're choosing to make the details of the circumstances around votato's ban public knowledge with panthaleon's permission for those who cannot read the Speakeasy, as we're aware of some disinformation being spread (primarily by votato) that he was banned for his political beliefs.

Untrod Tripod wrote:The early messages we got about him were "he said some creepy things in a voice chat", and quotes of off-color (but not in isolation actionable) jokes. I'm not going to rehash the whole investigation and produce all the receipts, but what I will say is that once we got wind of what he was doing, we investigated closely, and after a 2-week ban for vague creepy posting, we escalated to a permaban 48 hours after we found out that he was targeting pants with sexually explicit messages. Investigating complaints of this nature requires us to compile chat logs, ask people about his behavior, etc. in such a way as to not act like he's already guilty and put the accusations out there in public as something we're investigating. I understand that because of the nature of how these investigations have to work the public never sees the investigation itself. However, it is a categorically false claim that there never was an investigation.
Actually, here's just a timeline of our actions re: votato that we wrote as a sanity check for keeping the details together since much of the conduct happened off-site and in Discord chats.

27 May - votato was warned for abusive behavior in a Mafia game.
5 June - votato offers to send "naughty pictures" in the U.S. Politics thread (details).
10 June - Nexus told votato that Nexus was uncomfortable about votato making sexual innuendos in site chat, and Nexus told votato to stop.
12 June - votato made a comment about (a user)'s employment allowing them "access to children", which was before a different "access to children" reference was made on the site (details).
12 or 13 June - (a user), (another user), and Untrod Tripod participate in a voice call with votato in the audience.
18 June - votato tells panthaleon, "i heard a rumor that you'd rather see my naughty bits than my name".
19 June - Nexus sent a warning to votato, including a link to the post from 18 June.
20 June - Nexus sent a response to votato clarifying the site's stance on sexual misconduct.
30 June - votato was banned for two weeks for inappropriate sexual comments.
30 June - votato makes a reference to Hitler liking dogs in the discourse thread.
30 June - (a user) approached Equinox with information about votato's behavior toward panthaleon.
2 July - (a user) reports Mafia post of votato making sexual innuendos in Mafia post-game on 5 June.
2 July - votato is permanently banned from the site

In no uncertain terms, votato's removal from the site had nothing to do with his political beliefs, and everything to do with repeatedly making unwanted sexual comments towards multiple users.

We take matters regarding sexual harassment very seriously. Several years ago, there was a user on the site that went by Nobody Special. During this time on the site, moderation was enforced lightly, or not at all. This user went about sexually harassing other users, and people wrote it off mostly as edgy jokes in poor taste. It wasn't until years later that he was arrested for solicitation of a minor. In the wake of his arrest, many users came forward to report that this user had sexually harassed them as well.

MafiaScum has a

zero tolerance policy

for sexually predatory behavior. Still, we gave votato the benefit of the doubt under the assumption this was simply a joke in poor taste, issuing a warning first before escalating to a two-week ban. When new actions came to light via more users coming forward, votato was permanently banned from the site.

Since then, votato has attempted to evade his ban several times under various alts. Each time, he has been caught. During these brief stints before being found out, he has "made friends" with people on the site. In many cases, he has added some users on Discord, and has then proceeded to invite them to private servers. In these private servers and in private conversations, he has continued his string of sexually-charged jokes and innuendo -- this time with minors being the object of his lewd jokes and comments.

MafiaScum moderators are limited in their ability to enforce policies off-site. What users choose to do in their free time, what Discord servers they choose to join, who they add on social media... these are things outside of our purview. What we WILL ban for, however, is using MafiaScum as a recruiting ground for servers where you then expose minors to users, such as votato, who were banned for sexually predatory behavior. In light of this, we've received over 37 pages of reports, transcripts, and logs from various mediums that have caused new action to need to be taken.

Krazy has been permanently banned from MafiaScum for using the site in the recruitment of newbies and minors to a Discord

server, where Krazy also made light of votato's sexual harassment and downplayed the severity of it, talking with minors about "leaving them alone with [votato] to corrupt their delicate minds with dick pics". Below is a sample of comments:

Spoiler: Chat Logs - CW: uncomfortable interactions with minor

Though it was already publicly known, votato's other alts that were banned, tayl0r swift and Lunar Martian, are being unredacted and made public. If you suspect any other alts of being owned by votato and attempting to evade a ban for sexually predatory behavior, please inform MafiaScum staff ASAP.

Any other known users who are related to the event are being privately warned and are not having further actions pursued

at this time

.

This is not merely joking around, this is not shitposting. It crossed a bright red line while belittling said line. Some members of MafiaScum staff have a mandatory reporter obligation, and we are gauging further action such as involving law enforcement. Please take note: this is not a lighthearted ban or one to joke about. This is a series of actions committed by someone who has shown the lengths and commitment they will go to get close to minors in order to make sexual comments and jokes towards them. This sort of filth has no place on MafiaScum. People who aid and abet sexual predators will also be forcibly ejected from this community.

It is possible and valuable to keep MafiaScum as a safe place for minors to exist. With care and vigilance from adult users (backed by a bare minimum of users refusing to enable predatory behavior), minors should be able to maintain healthy boundaries and not need to incessantly face the potentiality of people who want to harm them. This is everyone's responsibility, but it is a simple one. To the users who spoke out, reported what was going on, or refused to be associated with this -- thank you, we know who you are, and we're grateful to you for helping to keep MafiaScum safe.

Thanks,

The Mafiascum Mod Team