This site was always peaceful and happy in the years I was active, up until the end of 2016. It was a place where not everyone liked each other and people didn't always see eye-to-eye, but we handled our disagreements in a relatively mature way and we all continued to enjoy the site even if there were members here we hated for some reason or another. It was a harmonious and special corner of the internet that I loved visiting and loved being a moderator for. I liked helping this place even when it was stressful because it was worth it. Even when Adofo tried to tarnish my reputation and get me fired from the staff, I still wanted to be here and wanted to be a part of this community.
But now it has changed, and [censored] has gone way too far, and it went there months ago, and we tried our best to fix it, but there was only so much we could do. MLK has become a place that I get angry just hearing about, the rare occasion I think about the site and want to check up on the few friends I have here I can't contact elsewhere I just get consumed by rage because this isn't a place where I can come check up on my friends anymore, it's not a friendly happy place anymore and I'll never be able to see it that way again because the problem is something that is never going to go away, or I guess I should say, it's someone. Moka's management style, if you can call it that, is the ONLY problem, if I'm honest, and you all know that I AM honest.
We had a few misunderstandings when the trouble first began that would have been sorted out if people had communicated with the staff, Moka was right about that. But after that point, things went too far and him being involved and trying to be "understanding" in the most hypocritical way possible is what made everything worse. I watched a few members deliberately stirring up trouble. Eventually they began a near-constant string of passive aggressive attacks on myself, Marizzle, and KK, though mostly the latter. This went on for months with us BEGGING Moka to do something. We were the victims, it wouldn't be right for US to do something about them. But he refused to even talk to us most of the time, remaining silent, ignoring us completely. That's right, after saying we all needed to communicate better, he IGNORED his staff when they were being harassed, publicly, and the harassment went offsite, too, and Moka STILL ignored our pleas for guidance or action.
After months of things escalating, he became angry with US, without even speaking to us, because we were angry and irrational. But why would his staff have been anything else when he had ABANDONED us and we had to keep dealing with this crap, feeling powerless? He forbade us from issuing bans after a couple of bans had been issued at HIS AND KK'S WORD because he decided we'd been too rash, so even though the bans that caused him to say that were not those made at the moderators' own discretion, he forbade us from using our discretion to issue any bans at all, even on people who had reached the warning level that had a ban accompany it. So we weren't allowed to punish people if they did anything, at least not a punishment that would mean much, because people will ignore warnings without bans, and yet when [censored] went down he ignored us. All he would have had to do would have been to talk to the people, and if that didn't work he could have issued a warning, worked up from there if they kept at it... but he refused.
Tensions rose because we were powerless. The people who did those things, well, maybe they had reasons, I'm not here to judge them, because honestly they weren't the problem, they were just what led me to understand the problem.
See, for the last two years this site was run with the staff communicating on the site. We talked everything out and got opinions before acting except in extreme cases. Anyone who wasn't around would come by later and read through it and everything was fine. The site was happy, the staff was happy, and when people did something that deserved punishing, they were punished. If the staff made a mistake, we would apologize and set it right and there was none of this public drama bullshit that plagued the site recently. Usually Moka wasn't present for that, and typically would just comment on things after the fact, either noting what should have been done differently or praising the action. Then telegram happened, and he decided he needed to communicate with everyone... EXCEPT his staff.
He never tried to understand our perspective, he simply scolded us for being angry, stressed and frustrated that he'd taken away our power and had refused to act when we were being treated like crap. He refused to look at it from our side, meanwhile he talked to those who were treating us poorly and tried to "understand" and explain away their actions without ever trying to justify our feelings to them, or if he did he did so falsely because he didn't talk to us privately the way he did them to try and come to understand our perspective, not until it was much too late. He came to me one day after I'd had a very stressful day at work and I'd come back to hear about further escalation in the drama and was livid. He expected me to talk with him and one of the instigators when I was already stressed out of my mind. I needed to eat and already my stomach was turning so I declined to speak with them at that time, saying it would have to happen a different time if it happened, knowing I wouldn't be fair and not wanting to be even more angry and stressed that day.
Moka responded to this by firing me from his staff. That's right. I didn't step down, I was FIRED. Fired because I was sick of watching people break the rules and not being allowed to do my damn job. Fired because I apparently "scared" Moka by being fed up and deciding I was going to just leave without a word. To be fair, I'd asked to be temporarily removed from the staff several times due to irl issues and had been ignored, but that further goes to show that he WASN'T LISTENING to us, despite claiming communication is important. I asked for help, he ignored it. You guys think he's some cool, chill, nice understanding guy but the fact is he will do anything for his friends, including treat the staff like misbehaving children. He's not the nice, fair, understanding person he wants people to think he is, and for that reason, I am well and truly done with this site. I had thought that in time I would be less angry and I would want to come back and things would be okay, but I've found that my anger only dissipates when I'm not here and not thinking about the place, even though irl has become much less stressful. So at this point, I don't intend to return unless some drastic changes take place and Moka starts listening to BOTH sides and being fair to everyone, instead of just ignoring whichever side he likes less. He needs to own up to his mistakes and admit that he was at fault and he needs to actually TRY to make himself the person he claims he is. I could have said this to him privately, but based on our other conversations, it would have changed nothing, if he even acknowledged it, and I feel like people deserve to know who is in charge, and I honestly don't care if he wants to punish me for saying what's on my mind, like he did to my friends.
Am I one of the cool kids now that my friends have been banned?
If you don't want to completely lose contact with me, you'd best ask for some contact info before I get banned for daring to tell y'all this small fraction of the truth. Or you can wait a few years for when I apologize and beg to be let back and reappear suddenly one day.
