kenton log

Uhhh. Seriously, please, if you have some objection about the vote, tell me?
Leaving like that just. Leaves the impression that you think we doctored the vote or something.
I'm trying to be as transparent and fair as I can, so.
GrapebearToday at 6:44 PM
it doesn't feel like an accurate way of gauging things and i know for a fact that there are people there who just don't like him and don't give a shit if he's changed or not.
kentonHRToday at 6:45 PM
I mean, sure, a vote on its own isn't enough to make a call there. That's why we collected opinions, not just 'yea/nay' votes without context - We did it for perspective on how people feel, not a democratic "This decides the result all on its own" thing.
But as for the other point...
GrapebearToday at 6:48 PM
and i've had a huge issue with how banning him's been handled compared to other people's bans from the start.
kentonHRToday at 6:48 PM
...Okay, look at it this way: You have a party. There's someone excluded from that party, but half the active people there hate the guy. What do you do?

Do you let him in anyway, and act as if those people who don't like him don't count, because they're unfair or biased or whatever? Well, maybe. That's potentially the most fair option to them, but it's also going to piss off half your party that you have been tasked with the job of keeping happy. Excluding someone from a social group due to that group not liking them happens all the time, and generally it's just considered normal. No one should be forced to interact with someone they hate.

Do you keep them out, because the current people present don't like them and that's more important than their own behavior? Well, maybe. That's the safest route for the community as a whole, but it's also potentially unfair, people are bad at dropping old biases and are resistant to change. It's possible that it'd be totally fine and they've changed and no problems would occur.
Neither of those perspectives is flawless. Neither really works. We're trying to balance things, and the ambiguity of it all is why his ban has come up over and over again, more than anyone else's.
Bluntly, his ban has been handled differently from everyone else's because no one else has ever caused so many problems that they got permabanned three times.
He's an outlier we don't really fully know how to handle, that's why we've asked for advice and feedback.
GrapebearToday at 6:51 PM
I'd say it's kind of unfair when the person you've banned is part of the reason the "party" was started to begin with and is also a part of the reason why it became so popular to begin with.
kentonHRToday at 6:52 PM
It's certainly an unusual circumstance, yes. But I don't actually think it would be at all fair to consider that as part of the judgement - Aperture's community now is not the community it was then.
To let that be the determining factor would... Basically be overruling the current players in favor of nostalgia.
GrapebearToday at 6:53 PM
Chris has stated to me how deeply he actually does care about all of you and of aperture, how proud he is of how it's built up and all that he's done there, and so forgive me if it feels like you're spitting on him because a few people take issue with his personality and don't really care if he's changed at all, especially with how i've recently been hearing the forgive and forget mentality from all of you involving stuff that's happened in the past.
I...don't mean to sound mean or accusatory, it just genuinely feels hypocritical to me.
kentonHRToday at 6:56 PM
Don't worry about that, I'm happy to discuss it. Like I said, I do want to be fair about this, so addressing issues is important.
First off, I dunno that Chris being sentimental is really relevant to the decision...? It's nothing to do with why he was banned - Actually, if anything, it ties into his ego problems that caused some of the strain in the first place. One of Chris's deeper issues was a sense of entitlement and ownership over things that really had very little to do with him - It didn't cause many of the angry fights that he got in trouble for, but it did cause the deepest, angriest scars, because it outright ended up causing him and Midna to leave pretty serious marks on each other.
Second, as for the forgive and forget thing, the issue is that any such stance has to have limits and for many people, Chris has exhausted all his chances. That's... Hard to regain good faith from people after.
It's a balancing act more than hypocrisy - Between strict rules, and anarchy.
This stuff's difficult for that reason. None of us really know what's okay and what's not. We're figuring it out as we go, and trying to keep the place together.
GrapebearToday at 7:01 PM
That just makes it sound like it might be more of a personal issue or relationship issue that midna has with him, I know how he acts, I know how he is and hell I'VE even wanted to strangle him more than a few times because of it, but he is improving and I don't know...I'm a firm believer in that if you can prove to someone that you've changed, then you deserve another chance.
it's how me and bec are best friends now.
kentonHRToday at 7:02 PM
Like I said, midna doesn't take part in any discussions about it, due to those issues. Purely to try and avoid bias on that one.
...But on the flip side, those issues were seriously dangerous. Chris had a dangerous mindset of "I've done nothing wrong, so I deserve this" with a lot of things - I'd like to think he's gotten better about that, but I can't really say that for sure, and that sort of damage leaves scars on people's friends too, not just the individuals.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if that relationship were the original source of a lot of this, and the reason that a lot of the memo ended up fracturing into 'pro-chris' and 'pro-midna' in the aftermath of their breakup. That's the past though, and beyond my ability to change - All I can do is ensure that all the talk about midna being a tyrant or kicking people she doesn't like out isn't true and doesn't have any basis in reality. I can't heal the scars, just ensure that the place is run as smoothly as I can in the present.
GrapebearToday at 7:06 PM
....
kentonHRToday at 7:06 PM
In the present? Well... Chris said he'd changed twice, got let back in twice, and continued angrily attacking people whenever he thought they'd done something wrong both times.
Do I think he's changed? Yes.
GrapebearToday at 7:06 PM
I didn't mention any of that stuff about midna.
kentonHRToday at 7:06 PM
Do I think he's changed more than the last times? I don't know.
Eh?
That just makes it sound like it might be more of a personal issue or relationship issue that midna has with him
I was addressing that comment.
GrapebearToday at 7:07 PM
no i mean about midna being a tyrant or banning people she doesn't like.
kentonHRToday at 7:07 PM
Oh, that.
Yeah, you were never part of that one, not saying you were. No worries there.
Aperture was getting slandered in other memos around the time she took over and Chris stepped down though.
Even though Chris himself insisted it wasn't true, he had people 'supporting' him by doing it anyway.
That was a mess. x.x
GrapebearToday at 7:08 PM
I'm not exactly satisfied by this, but i'm a naturally skeptical person.
kentonHRToday at 7:08 PM
Sorry if I'm sort of rambling, I sort of tend to go 'stream of consciousness' when discussing complicated issues like this one.
Personally?
GrapebearToday at 7:09 PM
hell the other group i'm in is made up of people who have felt wronged by aperture and the people there.
nah man i understand, i do the same thing.
kentonHRToday at 7:09 PM
My biggest worry, is that I don't know what it would take to rebuild these bridges.
We've basically got two groups who hate each other, and mixing them will just cause internal strife in both.
Chris coming back, if it ever happens, definitely can't be as simple as "you're unbanned, go wild*, but... I don't really know what it'd take. I don't know how to piece the mess left behind by old scars back together.
And if I don't know that, am I really cut out to make the call in the first place? That's why I held the vote.
(Or, why I supported it anyway.)