Dear Restoration Community:
Last week a user reported to us the contents of the DEATH guild’s Discord Server. In the video (warning: the video contains mature and offensive language and adult content), a number of users are seen using racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, and transphobic language and imagery. We have taken action against the involved accounts as described below.
We’re dispensing with our usual protocol that dictates we don’t discuss moderator action to share this with the community because of the broader impact of how we’ve decided to handle this issue and to explain how and why we have deviated from our standard operating procedure.
First, we want to note that our general posture towards third-party discords is that what happens in them is not something we can moderate or control. This is both a practical matter (we only have so many volunteer moderators) and one that attempts to balance the equities (should your conduct elsewhere implicate your status in the community). At the same time, the invite link to the DEATH Discord Server was shared publicly in our Discord (through the guild recruitment channel) and the conversations recorded in the DEATH Discord were public, so it’s understandably somewhat equatable to how we would moderate posting links to other sites or content that contains obscene, harmful, or offensive content. We also considered what sort of precedent this creates for future moderation activity, and whether that would be a positive or negative.
The recurring theme we arrived back to, however, was that regardless of protocol or how much “red tape” we create to insulate the different factors, at bottom, we’re dealing with a group of people who have engaged in egregious behavior and are effectively normalizing and spreading hate speech. And hate has no place in our community. This left us with another challenge, though, of deciding who and how to handle this from an enforcement perspective.
One of our core moderation principles is rooted in the idea of examining each individual, the context and circumstances of their misconduct, and the broader contributions and value they bring to our community. We applied that here, and examined each individual account, their history, the contributions they’ve made to the community, and met to determine appropriate action. This included the permanent termination of a number of accounts, as well as long-term suspension and final warning status for others. We have also disbanded the DEATH guild in-game.
Ultimately, we believe that regardless of our specific rules, circumstances may occasionally arise in which we must exercise our editorial discretion to take action against accounts in the interest of protecting and growing the kind of community we want to be a part of. And that is what we’ve done today. We understand that not everyone will agree with our approach, or agree with our decision, but we have taken the steps we believe are necessary to protect our community as a whole and ensure it can thrive into the future.
Moving forward, we are also adding the following Community Standard effective immediately:
Please note that while we have provided transparency in sharing this communication due to the broad reaching implications of these actions, this will be the full extent to which we share information on this matter and we will not discuss or comment further.
May The Force Be With You,
The SWG Restoration Team
Last week a user reported to us the contents of the DEATH guild’s Discord Server. In the video (warning: the video contains mature and offensive language and adult content), a number of users are seen using racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, and transphobic language and imagery. We have taken action against the involved accounts as described below.
We’re dispensing with our usual protocol that dictates we don’t discuss moderator action to share this with the community because of the broader impact of how we’ve decided to handle this issue and to explain how and why we have deviated from our standard operating procedure.
First, we want to note that our general posture towards third-party discords is that what happens in them is not something we can moderate or control. This is both a practical matter (we only have so many volunteer moderators) and one that attempts to balance the equities (should your conduct elsewhere implicate your status in the community). At the same time, the invite link to the DEATH Discord Server was shared publicly in our Discord (through the guild recruitment channel) and the conversations recorded in the DEATH Discord were public, so it’s understandably somewhat equatable to how we would moderate posting links to other sites or content that contains obscene, harmful, or offensive content. We also considered what sort of precedent this creates for future moderation activity, and whether that would be a positive or negative.
The recurring theme we arrived back to, however, was that regardless of protocol or how much “red tape” we create to insulate the different factors, at bottom, we’re dealing with a group of people who have engaged in egregious behavior and are effectively normalizing and spreading hate speech. And hate has no place in our community. This left us with another challenge, though, of deciding who and how to handle this from an enforcement perspective.
One of our core moderation principles is rooted in the idea of examining each individual, the context and circumstances of their misconduct, and the broader contributions and value they bring to our community. We applied that here, and examined each individual account, their history, the contributions they’ve made to the community, and met to determine appropriate action. This included the permanent termination of a number of accounts, as well as long-term suspension and final warning status for others. We have also disbanded the DEATH guild in-game.
Ultimately, we believe that regardless of our specific rules, circumstances may occasionally arise in which we must exercise our editorial discretion to take action against accounts in the interest of protecting and growing the kind of community we want to be a part of. And that is what we’ve done today. We understand that not everyone will agree with our approach, or agree with our decision, but we have taken the steps we believe are necessary to protect our community as a whole and ensure it can thrive into the future.
Moving forward, we are also adding the following Community Standard effective immediately:
Your verifiable behavior anywhere (whether on our services or not, and whether online or not), when you include reference to it within our services whether directly or indirectly, may not cause or risk causing social or reputational damage to our community as a result of your actions, behavior, affiliations, or positions that are or could be generally construed to be an affront to societal morals or common decency.
Please note that while we have provided transparency in sharing this communication due to the broad reaching implications of these actions, this will be the full extent to which we share information on this matter and we will not discuss or comment further.
May The Force Be With You,
The SWG Restoration Team