Recent events and our stance on trolls

So many of you are wondering where all these new conflict of interest bans are coming from. Before I begin explaining I want to share a little about the hardships of running a server.

When I first started this server, I had to make some really hard decisions for the best interest of the community. This is one of the reasons most servers fail early on. It's putting the community before your friends. A lot of servers start with a group of friends and they promptly end that way because one or more of the friends is not a good fit for the administration of the server and they don't want to demote their own friends. When this community first started, we had some great dedicated admins that helped me run this place and make it what it is today. I am eternally grateful for their help and consider them my close friends however I had to make the hard decision of demoting them when it was in the servers best interest. It was some of the hardest demotions I had to hand out but essentially it was what was best for the community.

Being a server owner isn't just about reading suggestions, reports and appeals while adding content, maps & weapons. It's also about making a conscious decision on the future of the community. While to some it may seem I am not very involved with the server, its actually the complete opposite. I spend a lot of time running things in the back end and making decisions that I feel will further grow and help this community. Sometimes these decisions are hard and take a lot of thought and time.

I would like to think of myself as a reasonable person. I don't lightly hand out permanent bans. Some of my admins have requested permanent bans many times that I have denied. You also have to understand that a permanent ban is not necessarily permanent but more so banned until the administration deems fit for their return to the community. I have revoked over 60+ permanent bans. I have reduced five times that amount of bans.

As a community we tend to evolve and I hope it's for the better. In the past we have been very lenient with trolls and they have made returns only to get themselves banned again. In recent events, one of these trolls managed to get a hold of login credentials to one of our staff e-mail & steam accounts. They used this account to join the server they were permanently banned on. They obviously did this with the help of others which is why now we are taking a much harsher stance on trolls and their associates.

It pains me to have to ban several members of our community, some which you may like more than others. However I feel for the future of our server & community, this is in our best interest. I want to be as transparent as possible regarding these recent events but in order to not further damage our goal of getting rid of these trolls, I would have to keep certain details confined to just our administration. I hope you guys believe in us and trust us to do the right thing.

If you have any issues, concerns or feedback regarding these turn of events, please keep them contained in this thread. As a community we discuss things and come to conclusions that we all deem necessary for our best interests.

Thank you for your time,
Highwon

 

Don't worry about what people think about the way you work Highwon! You're the reason this server is what it is today. The mods and admins have helped make it a better place, but you're the person that fuels all of the decisions and make the hard changes and decision that make this server what it is. Sure we may have lost some great friends in the past day, but we have to remember that it will be for the better of the community.