Hopefully, it all ends now.

Damn, it's been a crazy week to say the least. A lot has happened, and hopefully this thread puts an end to it. This will be the first, and final official statement released about the event a lot of players are "dying" to know about. They seem awfully concerned that 3 staff members were demoted due to breaking one of the rules that was set for staff members here.

Rule #9 in Staff Rules & Etiquette:

If you are questioning our "morals" with this rule, more will be explained later in this post. Until then, keep on reading.

Knowing this rule was set in place, the people involved continued to use Skype in a group setting, and even talked about making a giant Skype staff group in order to rebel against the rule.

All of this could have taken an immensely different turn if they had simply not lied to our face when questioned about this skype group. If they were questioned and admitted to using the group, they would have been warned not to use it and probably would not have been demoted. Instead, they lied claiming they were not using any sort of Skype group at all.

Spoiler: Skype logs dated August 6th, 2014

This is being posted because the people involved constantly asked us to post this, so breach of their privacy here is not in question, since they seemed to be fine with proof being posted. Seems like an ordinary conversation, right? It was the lying that got them demoted.

Once they were finally demoted, we refused to share evidence of the groups for the protection and confidentiality of the person who provided the information to us, and these 3 thought they had an edge thinking we simply demoted them over a hunch. Playing dumb, they would act completely oblivious to the groups, and come off as victims. Players have a habit of hearing a minor part of a story and subconsciously turning them into "facts" in their heads, so they were not happy for this wrong doing the higher ups had done, causing even more drama than this community needed.

After seeing the toll this event had on the whole community, seeing how crazy the community got, seeing how strongly HILARIOUSLY misinformed players could feel about a situation they know NOTHING about? We had to make this post. We had to make it so the staff members continuously resigning, could see that we DO NOT demote people on hunches. We DO NOT demote people on guesses, we ensure that we have proof, and we gave them a way out; they played dumb, claiming not to know anything about it.

With permission of the informant we had, we gave them the evidence, and this is how they replied to him.

Spoiler: Realizing they were caught

That sort of seems like words that would come out of people who KNOW they did something wrong, and they sent a lot more than that to harass the informant we had. It's truly a shame.

So is this enough? Can we put an end to the drama that is being caused because of THREE staff members being demoted? Are we finally trusted to run this servers, and have we shown you that the decisions we make are for a reason?

I really hope so, if not, then that's pretty unfortunate. Even after this event, the people involved had to be banned from the shoutbox because of continuously harassing and causing havoc. These are the people you have been defending the past couple of days, making them out to be the victims, and us being the wrong do-ers. We just want you to know that we make our decisions based on the best interest for the community, and that's why we remain so strong.

The Skype ban was set in play because of numerous complains we would constantly get regarding staff members in their groups. We would feel restrained not being able to do anything since we were not in these groups, so the staff members could never be talked to. We essentially created environment where staff can have all the privacy they had on their skype groups, but if a staff member is needed, they are literally one click away; ONLY when they are needed. More about the pros and cons of this change can be explained if requested later, this post is long enough as it is.

I just hope you all understand why we did what we did.

EDIT: If you still have your doubts about the screenshots, I really don't know how else to prove it to you besides to give you the account information of the informant and let you see for yourself. I have learned that people will never truly be satisfied about the information they are PRIVILEGED to get, and at this point, I don't think I care anymore.

Is that proof enough?

EDIT on top of that EDIT:

Spoiler: Here's a screenshot of the legitimate post quoted above in case you think that was faked too.

 

Is that picture supposed to show them being in a skype group or rebelling against the rule? I don't think talking about IT is rebelling.

 

Those can easily be faked.
I could very well make a duplicate of one of the users' account and claim they were using skype and get them demoted and get admin.

 

It shows them being in Skype after the time of the ban. The rule is that you aren't allowed to participate at all in such groups and they broke that rule. As Slicck said, they were given a chance to own up to their actions and they still ended up lying to us about it, which is why we were so harsh on them.

 

Being part of a group that involves Serious TTT members goes against what the staff are supposed to do. That's why they were demoted.

 

Then why would the accused say they were caught?

 

In order to get the highest order of evidence possible and make sure none of it was tampered, I actually had a chance to view the person's screen so he could show me the groups and show them inside the groups in real-time. I think it's pretty hard to shop that.

 

It's showing them in a Skype group after rule 9 was set in place. Like Slicck said, it wasn't only the use of the application that got them demoted. It was the trust that was betrayed.

 

They admitted to it later in this post. Please read it's entirety before posting.

 

I don't understand what kind of complaints would be made about that. Can you elaborate?

 

plotting of mass destruction

 

Please read my post like grown adults (if you are) and try to comprehend the context;they admittedly were using Skype but were not talking about STTT.
Understand the situation from a general point of view;not a potentially biased opinion.

 

@Sam

That is not what your post said at all. You said it could be faked, but it obviously is not. The rules meant Skype groups were not allowed AT ALL and they chose to not follow that rule. I don't understand what underlying text you seem to be writing about.

 

Please read the rule that was instated about the Skype ban; Any participation in a Skype group as a staff member, with other staff members or members of the community, is not allowed.

 

>implying they were more than 2

 

Guys, I thank you all for trying to defend us but what they are telling you about us still being in a Skype group is true.

 

^More than two.

He even admits it again above... What don't you get?

 

This is why you never take a side on a manner unless you know what is going on. I am shocked by some of the members of this community.