My Statement

When I woke up this morning to find myself banned from the private and public IRCs, demodded and banned from /r/Games and its private equivalent for mods, I was beyond shocked. I tried asking my friend, a mod, what had happened. I got no reply. I logged onto the IRC using a web IRC service as my own user was unable to access it. I asked one of the room regulars that I know, and he was very helpful. He had no idea what had happened either, and when he asked the same mod he was told that they weren't commenting on it. This didn't really help either of us. He was very good about talking me through my newfound loss of something I'd spent a year and a half caring for, several hours each day. So I thank you for that, though I won't name you here so that you won't get in trouble.

When I thought about it I figured out what had happened. Yesterday morning a series of pictures starting making the rounds in 4chan, and eventually subreddits like /r/Gaming. It claimed to feature an /r/Games moderator giving up information about lots of things. After a bunch of analysis we had a lot to show for the theory that the "leak" wasn't a leak at all, but was instead done by someone outside our team using materials that were accidentally made public. I had accidentally made those materials public by linking my puush album, unknowingly open, to the public IRC. I could say that because I'd been awake for three days and hadn't eaten in the same time that this is excusable, but it isn't. I never like making excuses. With the leak though there was something that we didn't know how they could've obtained: a few lines from our private IRC. Four or five I believe, showing a joke that another mod had made and taken out of context to make him appear bad. I didn't want to suspect any of my brothers of leaking, so I went through every possible option besides that. I still don't want to suspect them of anything, but I guess that's not a mutual arrangement.

Once we were made aware of this leak, the mod primarily mentioned in it immediately began suspecting me of being behind it. Together we found many inconsistencies in this, plus the fact that it could only be bad for me and gained me nothing would make the action odd. Still he suspected me, and without a better target I don't really blame him. We had ruled out irc admins ghosting in, reasonably so anyway, when I decided that I couldn't work any longer and went to sleep for the first time since the bulk of this drama started. When I woke up, of course, everything was gone.

I know why it happened. Someone had mentioned it the other day. If nobody is blamed for it then there will be no trust and no kind of integrity for the team. Someone has to take the fall, and unfortunately finding out the real culprit is impossible. I was suspected by the person named in those leaks, and this last task fell to me. Never mind that I spend many hours every day improving /r/Games, talking to people to get AMAs, answering questions, clearing reports, and have been doing these things for a year and a half. Never mind that I frequently tell anyone who will listen that I want /r/Games to be the best subreddit on the website, and that I want us, the mods, to be the best to suit that. Never mind that the only thing I could possibly gain from such a misinformed leak is, well, this. I still don't blame them for anything, even now. For the last year and a half /r/Games has been my escape from depression, and the mods and users have been some of my greatest friends. I can't blame the people I laughed with in skype calls or made fart jokes with on Steam, or even the ones I argued with occasionally on IRC. I spent a very long time getting to know them all, and we went through various trials to get to where we are. Drama after scandal after shitstorm, a never ending test that we always came out of on top. I can't think lowly of them, nor will I ever.

So what do I do now? I'm not sure. I'm writing this paragraph hoping the answer comes to me before I finish this sentence so that I can have something to lean on. I can't think of anything. I'm just a lonely man with a crap job whose life is now gone. Everything I do is done through routine, revolving around sleep and medicine. Today at 4PM when I'd usually be going over the /new queue and looking for blogspam and whatnot, I think I'll just have to sit here. Maybe finally watch Firefly. I don't know what else to do. I haven't done anything else at 4PM since 2012.

I'm getting slightly off topic. I woke up an hour ago as of this writing and I'm still in minor disbelief at what that hour has brought me. Quite a long time ago I was in a little country called Kuwait, and awoke one night to find scorpions walking along my legs. The next hour was full of careful maneuvering in order to avoid being dead. Somehow, I feel like I'd rather be back in Kuwait. Those scorpions were just animals. They didn't know me. They had no reason not to sting me. It was much simpler there. I got off topic again.

Anyway, that's really all I have to say. The other mods will no doubt reply to this, but I don't know of I'll reply to them. Just writing this has been a challenge for me. I don't know if I can do it again. I didn't expect anyone to listen to this at first, but in the past hour I've had a lot of people message me and tell me that I've always been a good mod and a good person, and I can't thank them enough. You've all made a massive difference to me, and though it's entirely possible now we'll never speak again, I'll remember those messages.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions for me, [try contacting me on steam](http://steamcommunity.com/id/XavierMendel/) because it's possible I won't be able to get your PM. I'd put my Skype down too but I don't think I'll be in a state to talk to anyone today.