An open letter to the black community of VGC

[Pemalite]

RolStoppable said:

Pemalite said:

I was born ready.

There is a time and place for everything.
If you make a racial joke in poor taste... Then you deserve ridicule.

You have explicitly agreed to pursue the logical end.

The logical end of assuming and jokes takes us here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8882026
Reasoning: Trolling (No need for such rhetoric in that thread.

This puts the stance you have taken in this thread to the test. You and the mod team moderated a joke because of a series of assumptions. The ban note doesn't recognize my post as a joke despite how over the top the post is. You don't know anything about the behavior in the NFL thread and how people interact with each other. You don't know how people have gotten along in sports threads on this website in general. You don't know the relationships between the users in the NFL thread. You have nothing but assumptions. As you say in the initial quote:

Essentially, you have brought in an argument from another thread into this one. Way to stay on topic.

But okay, I'll bite.

Whether your post was a joke or not is ultimately irrelevant, it was in poor taste.
Not only that... But the onus is on you to provide appropriate context so that your post isn't misconstrued by the mod team or other users, in short... It was your own fault and I stand by the moderation.

RolStoppable said:

There wouldn't be an issue if people weren't making a big song and dance about it.

You and the mod team made it an issue and nobody else; I know how my post made it into mod chat. Nobody in the NFL thread was offended - save for the sleepy moderator who by his own admission hadn't even properly read my post, but at the time thought he would do the right thing by bringing awareness to the rest of the mod team before he logged out himself - and if you think MTZehvor's response to my joke is some kind of proof that he was offended, then that's yet another wrong assumption due to your team's lack of awareness of how we have talked to each other in the NFL thread in all those years. In past years we didn't have any problems when certain NFL teams were refered to as communists or nazis because everyone in the thread understood that such things still belonged to banter and normal rivalry talk between sports fans. We all got along well in all those years, regardless of our nationality, race and team preference, and then comes the mod team and starts to moderate in a sports thread because they want to be stricter on hate speech or whatever, suddenly making an issue where there never was one.

I know that I am wading in a gray zone here. I shouldn't publicly contest a moderation, but this one here is of utmost relevance to the topic at hand. What comes out of this determines if the mod team's actions match their words or if it's all just empty talk because what is being said sounds morally correct and therefore good. I had asked for my moderation to be overturned because my post was a blatant joke and in a sports thread no less, but that request has not been granted. I was fully aware that any further form of private contact with the mod team would have fallen on deaf ears, so that's why this is being done public. I was left with no other choice and my best bet was to demonstrate how well white and black people get along on this website in general, and how black people think of me in particular. This thread right here shows that the community of VGC is more mature than the mod team seems to want to give it credit for. This thread shows that black people can recognize a joke; I mean, I called black people rude, selfish, ignorant, arrogant and stupid in the original post, and how many of them were offended?

 

To be honest... I don't care for your drama. And you would be unwise in thinking I do care for it.

RolStoppable said:

Overturning a wrong call doesn't make a mod team weak, rather it shows that a mod team is willing to moderate in the spirit of the community.

I agree. And we do it damn often.

RolStoppable said:

The correct context is right vs. wrong, and if there was a wrong call made, the refs get respected when they overturn it and it's for the best of the sport as a whole. Likewise, it's better for a community to know that they have a mod team who is willing to sincerely review a contested moderation and overturn wrong calls entirely. Of course the VGC mod team holds the power to do what they want, but if there's no sincere interest to serve this community, then don't be surprised if you don't get respected and discomfort with the mod team grows.

No. There wasn't a wrong call made. The only wrong call was probably the ban length, but that was rectified pretty quickly anyway.
The wrong call being made here... Is you thinking you are the victim.

We are all volunteers, we all deliberate on issues, we are all human beings... Yes because of that we will screw up... But you can bet we will recognize that, learn from it and take steps to try and not make the same mistake next time.
But I am 100% confident the appropriate course of action was taken... So you need to come to terms with that and move on.