Ratchat isn't dead. Nearly died tho.

So some people have been screaming in the past hourish “Ratchat is dead”. It’s not dead, but people did try to kill it for some of the most selfish and arbitrary reasons. Story time!
Back in June/July we had some problems with some users, you probably heard of them as this “cabal” (let’s ignore the primmie shit for now). These people wanted power in Ratchat for… some fucking reason, and in order to do so they tried to get rid of certain prominent members of the community. They were willing to do this with any means necessary, so they struck these members where it hurt. It started with transphobia, more specifically transmisogyny, claiming that certain users only got their positions because they were trans. A common, bigoted remark, “omg that person only got the job because they were a minority”, and not because they were… well… heavily respected members of the community.
It didn’t stop there. They next struck the second sore spot – mental health. Saying these people were “unstable” for the roles because they had x mental health issue, mostly depression. And when these mass accusations at someone who never even stepped on anyone’s toes on either side resulted in extreme stress and suicidal feelings, these users used it as an opportunity to say “look she’s pretending to be suicidal to gain sympathy!”.
I, and many other then-mods at the time, called them out on this. I tried to enforce the rules of Ratchat that were designed to protect people, mainly rule 1. This did not go well for me, and not well for many others. Apparently, making a case that someone broke rule 1… breaks rule 1! I was accused of bullying, slandering, despite having the screenshot evidence to back my claims (I have unfortunately lost these as SM has been wiped since I left it seems). But, it did lead to an event in accountability, we laid out the evidence and the accused… mostly just trolled people. Many advocated a ban, obviously the “cabal side” was against that, but even people weren’t took this fucking anarcho-liberal stance to it, letting them off with a slap on the wrist, asking us to “compromise”. One side wants power and will use transmisogyny and extreme ableism to get it, the other side wants to stop that. Yes, let’s fucking compromise!
Said person in accountability was given a temporary ban until we could discuss it later, it wasn’t a permanent or even a long ban at all, because they wouldn’t stop trolling and pinging people in accountability. Server management at that point, went completely apeshit. Accusing us of abusing power, demanding him to be brought back, even people who hadn’t posted in SM for days during this shit. The message was clear, these people either were willing to still go for this power grab, and/or considered transmisogyny and ableism acceptable in Ratchat.
Someone asked earlier how people were driven off Ratchat. THAT is how. Many members, trans members or members suffering from mental illness like myself felt suddenly terrified for our safety, so we left. Some came back, some didn’t, some left Ratchat and never were seen in another server again. It was letting these people have their power, but fuck it safety first I guess.
I can’t pretend I have no vindictive feelings against those people, and that some of this doesn’t make me smile to see them getting the shit they deserve, but that’s not why this is happening. Revenge is kinda pointless, but there are plenty of members in Ratchat, especially IWWs, who were not involved and don’t deserve to be ruled over by these people. Not just because of their bigotry, but because of their unwillingness to help some of the vulnerable members of this server. I’m sure all of you heard about the 4chan raid. It was mostly an annoying thing rather than dangerous, or at least… it didn’t have to be. The mods here bar a tiny select few did fuck all to help the anxieties of the people here, seeing their self-care chats being leaked on /pol/. It wasn’t solved until Ormi had to get dragged in for help.
So there you have it, that’s a rather brief summation of why shit is going down today. Believe me this isn’t all of it. I get that it sounds all a bit “it’s for your own good”, but it’s more for the good of the vulnerable members of the community. Don’t super care about the people who’ve been lashing out at this.