Ok, let me clear the air about this once and for all.
nightbloom has been banned from SRF for violating rule #5 of the
"5 EASY WAYS TO GET BANNED FROM SRF": Being a constant problem.
The evidence presented against her in support of her botting is clear and undeniable. However, the date that the recording was made is clearly far outside the boundaries of the 90 day restriction we have put in place. Therefore she cannot be banned from SRF for being a bot.
She can, however, be banned from here for making the lives of the moderation staff much more difficult by intentionally stirring the pot or "drama whoring", as she put it. Why hadn't she been banned long ago, you ask? Simple. Regardless of what she obviously did in her past, nightbloom is among the most militant of the legits in this game. Her standards for what makes a legit are the most stringent of anyone's, and her tolerance for failure to live up tho those standards is virtually non-existent. She was often belligerent, confrontational, controversial, and the source and recipient of an excessive amount of flaming, but she was allowed to remain a member of SRF for all this time because she truly believes in the values that SRF upholds: legitimacy in Silkroad Online.
That being said, I feel the need to address some of the things that have been said about the SRF staff in regards to nightbloom, Avalon, and their presence here in general. Many of you seem to think that the SRF staff is "corrupt". Do you even know what that word means? When have the SRF staff failed to act within the boundaries of the rules that we set in place, rules that YOU, the users, demanded of us?
EVERY TIME a moderator was exposed as a bot or bot supporter, they were banned. Every time a high-profile forum member was exposed, they met the same fate. If anything, the only thing that we can be faulted for, perhaps, is not acting as quickly as some forum members would have liked in executing these bans. There are a variety of reasons that these things sometimes take more time than you think they should. We need to be sure that the evidence is enough to execute the proposed actions. We need to make sure that it is within our rules. We need to all AGREE on what is to be done. Sometimes this takes time.
You all need to realize that we are ALL volunteers on this staff. No one gets paid. There are no bonuses, no perks, just a lot of hard work in keeping this place running. You as a user base have decided that we don't want to allow bots to stay here. We try our best to ensure that. Many of you say that we are biased toward Avalon. I ask you to point out when we have been? Avalonians get warned as often as others. They get the same 7-day bans. They are forced to adhere to the same rules. If and when a member of Avalon gets in trouble here, it's because they are militantly trying to campaign for the beliefs that you all claim to support. Are they over the top? Very often, yes. Do they get away with a lot here? LOL. Some do, yes. But there are MANY users who have no association with Avalon that get away with as much, if not more. People that should have been banned long ago but have been allowed to stay because of what they add to the forum. People whom banning them would cause a PUBLIC OUTCRY.
My point is that there's no satisfying everyone. If we act, some will disagree. If we do not act, a different set of people will. No matter what, with thousands of active members on this forum, SOMEONE is gonna be unhappy with what we decide as a staff. But I will tell you this: personally insulting me, or any other mod, because we don't agree with your stance on person X or situation Y will get you banned. Disagree all you want but know where the line is, and don't cross it.
Oh, and in response to the idiot that posted his elaborate botting history in GD and then said "LAWL it's ok because it was more than 90 days ago, <3 SRF!!" - GTFO. Abuse our rules and you will be gone like the rest. I hope that clears the air.
If anyone has any questions, problems, concerns, criticisms, praises, bomb threats, whatever, PM me. If anyone makes a thread in response to this, it'll be locked. Remaking threads on it will get you warned. Keep it up and you'll be banned.
I REALLY hope I'm clear on all of this. For those of you who don't cause us any problems, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
-SG
