The last tale of a character

I have a story to tell. It is long, prepare to skip it if you don't like such long walls of texts.

btw, I am Quicksilver, if that colours the story for you in any way, I am not hiding it at the very least.

As most of you know, I was using my orgs since the (unfair) ban of my character. Many of them was banned by ill-wishing admins and mods, but the last one, named acerola lasted a surprisingly long time - until a few days ago I strongly disagreed with the_mihai (a community moderator, known as admin) on the subject of the new military rules. So strongly, that I myself edited my comment, modifying the wording so that it would not be insulting - only criticizing (a s.h.i.t.t.y changed into not too brilliant and such changes). Despite of the changes, the_mihai was so enraged that he banned my org from the forum, banned my other org too which only asked why the comment was deleted, and after a few angry PM-s in which I demanded to be unbanned, he banned my org permanently from erep - citing repeated insults as reason... which was quite clearly not the case. The appeal was denied within half an hour, with no reason, so quite clearly he had done it himself at once.

The second part of the story: I got angry, I think understandably angry, because my criticism was neither stronger nor worse than any of the rest in the topic that users said. After the ban of my org which I used for quite a while, I got more than angry, I became enraged - this blatant display of abusing an admin's power, the callousness by which he denied the truth and the appeal too, and yes, the idiocy of the new rules too - they all made me so angry that I literally seethed. I had another org, with which, I hurled insults at the_mihai - the org was banned of course in a very short order, and in the appeal I sent him some more piece of my mind only - knowing that this ban, and this ban alone was totally justified. It was worth an org to finally tell him what I thought of him.

The tale gets interesting from here. I borrowed an org from a friend, named Sh4de & Sh4de, which was not my org, never banned, never penalized - a clean sheet so to speak. With this org, I started to remind the_mihai, that his actions will have consequences, as unfairness and injustice always do - namely that his karma will visit upon him every sin that he comits (I believe Christians have a similar belief). I also reminded him a couple of times that my character and my orgs will haunt his conscience, I wished him the very same that he had done to me, and when he ansered once I answered that PM too. All in all maybe a dozen PM-s, all different, all meaningful, none of them containing a single insulting word even. But alas... the org was permanently banned after a few hours - the reason for the ban is SPAM. I appealed of course, beind incredulous that he would so blatantly overstep any laws.

But I did not want any more friends to loose their orgs, so I decided that the best would be to register a new character and take matters into its hand. This character is what I write with now - nicknamed Ghostwalker67. I tried to ask why was my previous org's conduct spam, so I asked both the_mihai and admins in general in tickets what constituted spam, and how many PM-s a day that is one allowed to write before an admin banned it for spam... permanently. Because that org had no previous bans, not even a single FP - it was banned permanently for a dozen or so PM-s, written in a particular subject, not insulting, not meaningless... and that seriously questioned in my mind how moderation works. If an admin can abuse his power so blatantly, so atrociously, then what can anyone expect? Because the story hasn't ended yet - when I last came online, all my tickets were closed with not a single answer to them, all my orgs still banned, and all my appeals denied without a word of an explanation.

Now, I had always known, ever since admins banned Quicksilver, that moderation was totally unfair, unjust and cruel to the extreme. What made me now to write this all down, when he will probably just delete it soon? That I had hoped that the_mihai would be at least a bit different. That he used to be a player, that he looked like a decent sort of a fellow when we met, that he was seemingly intelligent enough to grasp the existing situations in the moderation and that they were bad for the company, bad for the users, bad for business. And the first changes that he made were giving reason me to hope. Because you see, blatant censorship, outrageous favoritism and bias can only take a business so far... whereas solid, fair, open and just foundations are far harder to lay down, but they provide a much more stable structure, a much healthier enviroment - and you can all guess which enviroment is better for business - the healthy or the festering one? But the first hopeful signs have all dissappeared in time. All the bad habits, the bad practices, the bad rules came back - and lately multiplied too. And my case now, embodies this whole process, of course to me only, as I am a relative nobody nowadays, but for me it is a sort of a climax, in which a long-festering sore suddenly burst.

In the course of the last few months, I was mainly still around, because he made me a promise. I have long known that he broke that, I have long felt that he wanted to worm out of it, to shed the uncomfortable burden - yes, my character's unban. It doesn't really matter how he accomplished it, how the whole admin-team was set against it - I knew it, I felt it, I sensed it. They are very simply afraid of me, of the opinion I can tell, of the clout that I still have - and did their best to blacken my name in every way they could, to make it impossible for me to follow the game with my org, to alienate from me all those who used to be beside me. And since I am not perfect, I frequently fell for their sly provocations - I do have a very short temper sometimes. Well, they are succeeding, I know - all the tools and power is on their side, on mine it is only truth. I wowed never to give up, no matter how foolhardy it is, no matter that it is quite unhealthy to me in the IRL aspect. I could elaborate this part further, but it is already too long, and if I did that it would only reinforce my crazyness in many eyes.

So, to conclude the story, it is a fine example how the bad system with bad rules and bad reinforcers can lead to a total disaster. Because - as some of you can still remember - I did a helluva lot for erepublik, and had they not alienated me totally, I could have done a lot od good for it too. And they lost a lot of other good people in the same way - by driving them away from this unhealthy, festering, rotten enviroment. Can they afford this? Are they themselves good enough for the business? Even if they are all brilliant and hardworking - which they all are not - are they enough to work miracles and make erep a successful busines - and a good game?

Facts prove that they are not. The disastrous changes that many of these players that I mentioned warned about, the unheeded tons of advice that they ignored, the wasting of their own resources on matters not only immaterial but downright harmful, the self-destructing, suicidal course that they ut erep on are all signs that they are alone - cannot do the job. Hell, they even ignore their own handpicked CP's advice, why do I expect them to heed anything else...? But well... I am running out of energy to tell more. It has really became a tale, and went far from my orgs' bans. I had to spill my feelings, to put them down once more. It will probably be a short-living tale - or a closed topic, or a banned character... or anything in their repertoire that makes a matter unheard of.

Instead of hearing it out.

Which is too bad.

Quicksilver

The end of the story: Ghostwalker67, the character registered purely to write this is now permanently banned, becasue of this very text - dubbed as 'illegal public debate'. That means the_mihai is really on the warpath, banning everything that belongs to me, denying every appeal that I make, closing every ticket that I write - answering to nothing, abusing his position as totally as he possibly can. It is sad really, to see a person sliding more and more into the stinking marsh of unfairness and injustice.