First of all, as you should best able to tell, this is my farewell post to Runevillage. For those interested in contacting me, I do keep my private chat "on" so that anyone can message me, though I would prefer that people do not use that to flame me then put me on ignore like happened last time I left RV. Furthermore, I plan to be spending time on
http://runescape.salmoneus.net/, so you can find me there as well if necessary.
For those who are wondering why I am leaving RV, since I have come back recently, I've run into a large amount of animosity among the staff of RV for various reasons. This has made it extremely difficult to operate on Runevillage. You would be surprised how much power the staff actually wields despite a fairly small amount of actual abilities, such that if enough staff members WANT to be jerks to you, they can essentially paralyze much of what you do.
Before going farther, I would like to mention a few things to the staff. First, the things I say are not directed necessarily at every individual staff member, though from what I've seen a large number is involved, if not a flat out majority. Second, I have read over the rules VERY carefully as listed under
http://runevillage.net/ThePub/rules.php and everything in this topic should be WELL within those rules. Not that it will necessary deter the staff from taking action against it anyway.
Finally, and most important, I would remind you that experienced players similar myself have very little to gain from a site like Runevillage. Granted, we do occasionally pick up useful info from the forums, but usually we know most of the information on the forums already due to experience. The reason that users such of myself come here to is help others, because we have a large amount of knowledge that we think can assist others. And this is not restricted to Runescape alone; I personally have a large amount of experience in mathematics, physics, and economics which I share often, and each user has their own unique set of knowledge. We come here to help others who do not have this knowledge. However, many staff members, perhaps sometimes a little too infatuated with their power, like to take out their personal grudges on members such as myself and make this job harder. Given that I have nothing to gain from assisting others aside from the personal satisfaction of doing such, I don't know why I myself or anyone else in a similar situation should have to put up with it. Up to this point, I have put it up with it, but it has been worse and worse since I got back and am tired of having to put up with it; so I won't.
To answer a question that some users may have, this has nothing to do with Hiker and Henner. Being the #1 and #2 of RV, people may assume that mentions of staff might refer to them: this is not the case here. I can't claim to have had much interaction with these two, but I don't recall ever having any negative interaction with either of these two. However, unfortunately, even if they are the head honchos, they cannot provide a large amount of the moderation on a forum of this size, and thus their actions, no matter how good, cannot override negative actions from a large portion of the remainder of the staff.
The most notable interaction I had with the staff was in my recent banning due to my first quitting post from RV. Unfortunately, the events surrounding that event was highly distorted by the staff. It was here that they claimed a breaking of the rules under the category of leaking mod forum info due to the reasons for my quitting involving events in the mod forum. In particular, they focused on an inclusion of the posts from a topic of interest, a posting that was included in fairness to the staff so that what the user's saw was not solely an interpretation from myself. Unfortunately, this was returned by a quick ban, a deletion of the post, and then a spin of the events that happened. Ironically, while the staff had great problems with the "leaking of mod forum info" I performed, they themselves had no problems leaking the portions of the topic and, in many cases, lying about them to the point of literally saying the exact opposite of what happened. In Runescape, I had the opportunity to speak with one staff member who was lying about what happened. At the time, I believed this staff member simply misunderstood what had happened, so I explained what had happened, referencing to specific parts in the topic to explain this. This explanation was met with, "I don't like your interpretation of events; I'm going to keep saying mine." Since these events, many of the staff have been quite coarse to myself. Some staff members did message me in Runescape, but apparently their aim was not to ask the reasons for any of my actions; instead, they would message me (taking advantage of the fact I do not block private chat), flame me for a few minutes, then put me on ignore, preventing any chance of a response. This is not something I need to deal with. Given that I will likely check into this thread a few more times, if you wish to get in one more round of flaming at myself in a situation where I probably won't respond much, feel free to do so.
Unfortunately, the events with the staff are not limited to this. After the advent of clan chat, I spent many weeks helping people in rv cc. During these times, I would also explain the events surrounding my ban to those who asked. During one of these times, a staff member logged onto rv cc, and we started discussing the events surrounding this ban. Angered by the accusations I made about things that had been done, the staff member did the only logical thing: they banned me from rv cc. Since I have returned, I still remained banned from rv cc and continue to be unable to assist people on there. After attempting to appeal this ban, I found out that rv cc has no official affiliation with RV and thus there is no procedure for being unbanned. The staff member who banned me is the only one capable of unbanning me and furthermore is the only one with a say in whether or not it happens. The original staff member I contacted was nice enough to forward my appeal to this main staff member. However, over a week after the message was forwarded it, I have heard nothing either way from this staff member, and furthermore, given that this particular staff member was by far one of the worst during the events surrounding my banning, I do not expect that I will ever hear so much as a response, nor do I expect that any message I sent would be given any consideration at all. This is not something I need to deal with. I suspect the two staff members I refer to here know who they are, and if either the cooperative or uncooperative one wants to make them self known, it is their prerogative to do so.
Over the recent weeks, I have noticed some people who would not respond to myself at all. Furthermore, I noticed one in chat who literally had me on ignore. When I was seen by him for the first time, he sent out a rash of flames to me over the chat (which, of course, no chat mods were willing to do much about). No explanation was given by him for his anger. I attributed this likely to be SOMETHING related to the ban, but wasn't sure, so I requested that other people in chat ask if he could take me off of his ignore for 60 seconds so that we could discuss this. Unfortunately, every request by other chat users was followed by a further string of flames, until I had to put him on ignore myself to stop hearing it. After digging around a little bit, I found out that this was actually unrelated to my ban. Basically, the events center around a tragic story told to me by a member of RV (the story related to themself) and a lie about what my reaction to that story was. While I would like to give more details about this, the story-teller requested when I was told this story that I do not tell this story to anyone else. At the time I was told the story, I honored their wishes, and despite the fact that their actions of recent do not deserve such courtesy, I still honor those wishes. Continuing, I found that this person had eventually posted the tragic story in a forum outside of my view and then told people I had laughed when I heard this story. As such, I never knew that this post was made and was never given a chance to respond to it. However, the story-teller as well as many people who read this story put me on a total ignore. Thus, I didn't even realize it was happening. Once I did realize it was happening, I was unable to communicate with them. Even when I tried to get a few moments to communicate with them to explain my side, they refused. This is not something that I need to deal with. For those staff members who are involved in this, you will know who you are as soon as you read this; if you wish to get a chance to flame me one time (since you didn't get the chance while ignoring me), this will be your last chance.
As for the majority of the members of RV as well as the staff who haven't on their self-righteous high-horse of power, I have no problem with you and will be perfectly willing to continue assisting you if you need help. As I said, you can contact me in Runescape or on my new forum. As to the rest of the staff, I remind you that your position is not one that is meant to allow you to take out your personal grudges; nor is it one for you to show off your powers by deleting posts that you personally disagree with; nor is it one that is meant to smear the reputation of users. Rather, it is a position that is meant to protect the USERS of rv from things they may actually need defended from. Myself, I have tried to provide assistance as much as possible, but you seem to find it to be a funny game to make it as hard on me as possible. This is something I don't need to deal with. You may think that you've won some victory by finally pushing me off the website for good (I'm well aware that my unbanning was not a purposeful one). However, while I preferred to stay on RV, I myself will find more users to help; there are many websites that much appreciate the advice of a person of my experience. The only ones who "lose" are those who I would have helped and will not ask me for advice on RV or will not visit my new forum; and as I recall, those are the majority of the people that the staff is supposed to be helping.
