RoA Academy Statement On the Recent Bans
Yesterday, five people affiliated with a single crew (four members, one affiliated non-member) who were all in a voice call together came into the #recess channel in the Academy at nearly the same time (a full hour and a half after the previous messages in the channel) and joked around, copying and seemingly mocking an interaction between a newer member of the community and an older member who has dealt with targeted harassment for years. When #recess was closed, three of them repeated the interaction in NAcord twice, and they also all moved to continue talking in #gameplay-discussion, where some of them continued to joke around while others seriously answered some questions. At the same time, a known smurf account that was already banned in NAcord joined the #gameplay-discussion conversation for the first time, as well as a second smurf account that was timed out in NAcord previously.
Based on the information, including that we knew all five of them were in VC together, we chose to ban the two people who first seemed to be mocking the interaction, and suspended two others. The two suspended individuals made it clear they thought they were being targeted by corrupt moderators, and did not understand what they did wrong. After a lengthy discussion in #mod-chat about how far we want to go to ensure the Academy will remain a welcoming place for new members, and after re-examining our previous decisions about punitive actions against disruptive group behaviors in the Academy, we decided to ban the five people who appeared to be involved beyond a reasonable doubt.
After seeing a Tweet about the situation, an NAcord mod pinged the rest of the mods to check what was going on. I explained the situation, presenting all of the information we had considered, and multiple NAcord mods (who are not affiliated with the Academy mod team) agreed with the bans and suggested copying those bans to NAcord as well.
In response to the allegations of this being a biased decision targeting a specific crew: if any other group of people had sent those same messages, and we had evidence to support that it was a coordinated behavior, we would have taken the same actions. In the past, we may have been more lenient with our moderation and punishments, but in light of recent events and the official statement by the developers about community safety, we have independently chosen to increase our efforts to ensure a welcoming environment for new players. Additionally, we only banned the members who joined in on the original discussion. We did not ban the members of the voice call who did not talk at the time, nor did we ban the person in the voice call whose only messages during the situation were actual answers in #gameplay-discussion and who has in recent history been an active and positive contributor in the Academy.
Any banned individuals have an option to appeal their bans from either server. To appeal a ban in NAcord, they can DM any mod and we will bring it up in mod chat for consideration, or they can DM Etalus or SBS directly. The list of NAcord mods are: Dos Rogers, Etalus, Golden Elite, Menace13, Mentos, Nevereatcars, Pantch, Protagify, SBS, and Thine Dude. To appeal a ban in Academy, they can DM any Hall Monitor or Principal and we will bring it up in mod chat for consideration, or they can DM Menace13 directly. The list of (active) Academy Principals and Hall Monitors are: Menace13 (server owner), Shen (principal), MSB (principal), SNC (vice principal), yesdefinitely (vice principal), Bumblebomb, Golden Elite, NCB, Quote_a, and Zora (the AZ one).
