Greetings,

This message is in regards to the recent situation in #scl_chat which occurred on Thursday, Dec 5th, the day the channel was locked.

I have been a part of this community for almost a year now, and I have seen a handful of times where checker has felt the need to step in and scold a channel for bad behaviour. In each of these cases, it was very clear that either two people got into a heated argument, or someone was being overly negative and toxic, or etc, so I have understood it.

This time, however, I do not see what prompted the strong wording of the recent long messages from checker. The channel was re-opened recently, and Caley posted some suggestions and allowed a period of open discussion with no restrictions. He said he would require the discussion become more focused soon after posting his final proposals, but this had not happened yet. I am aware the discussion was long and winding and hard to scrollback through, and it is certainly valid if checker would prefer to avoid that, but no one broke any rules, and no one crossed any lines. Things were being debated, but everyone stayed polite and respectful from what I saw. I haven’t seen any person express discomfort with the conversation, even the people who were engaged in it the most. I did not detect a tone issue, despite it being stated that there was one, and I feel I am quite sensitive to those things.

Based on this, I feel like the long messages which were posted were not justified. The tone of these messages was overly aggressive, and I believe it was out of line. When I am not able to determine which people were behaving wrongly, it leaves me very confused as to who these messages were directed towards. It makes me feel like they were directed towards me, or towards my friends, or other people who I believe did nothing wrong, which is not a good feeling.

These messagers are not in line with the attitude I’ve come to expect from a person who is usually a champion of kindness and respect. They felt hostile and combative without reason. To me, this was a case of escalation instead of de-escalation. I feel the same concepts could have been expressed in a much nicer and more productive way, i.e. “Hey everyone! I want to say I appreciate people trying to be as respectful as possible even with these divisive issues. However, I still feel things are a little bit too heated, and it makes me uncomfortable. I also think the discussion is getting a bit muddled, people are coming in without having read everything because it is too long, so points are getting repeated, and things are getting lost. We’d like to make this more productive moving forward, so here are the rules we will put in place: etc” I would have had no problem with this. It is entirely the harshness that is my issue.

I understand that checker is very wary of any toxicity, and I understand the reasons for this, but I believe it led to an overreaction here. It is possible that past experiences of heated arguments made this discussion seem worse than it was, or that an assumption was made that with so many hundreds of lines of scrollback, people must have been behaving badly. I believe that these messages were posted with good intent, but I think they came out wrong.

These messages hurt me, made me feel like my friends and I were being unfairly chastised, made me feel like my voice is not welcome, and they make me unsure about how to participate in any future discussions about divisive topics since I don’t know where the line is anymore, especially with a threat of future public shaming. I am writing this message because I don’t think I am going to be able to feel comfortable in the community if this is not acknowledged in some way, and because I believe the best way to resolve any situation where I am feeling discomfort due to the actions of another person is to address it. Otherwise, I would feel bottled up resentment going forwards. Due to the unique nature of the game’s solo development, it is impossible not to associate the game and community with its developer’s actions. I know the mods here are always happy to receive DMs if a user feels someone else was behaving inappropriately, and I hope that same chain of discussion is available even if the person I have an issue with is at the very top of the chain.

I love this game and I love this community, so I hope this message comes across as genuine and looking for a positive outcome. If you feel I am out of line or that I am indeed the one with a behaviour issue, then I apologize, and please let me know.

Thank you.

- Dels
Dec 7th, 2019