I want to insist further that if this letter constitutes an offence against the site's rules, I'm willing to suffer all the necessary consequences.

I also want to point out that this letter is not meant to fuel more wars and personal attacks, but to bring clarity to a matter that has way too many regular players worried.

The metagame thing was early on. It's wrong but sometimes new players don't understand. The Mr V thing was a joke. I don't know why he joined a a game but at least he didn't join with the Diplomat33 account. If you ban him he will just rejoin with a new account. It's better that he keep the Diplomat33 account where the mods can keep an eye on him.

There is already a thread for this. It does not need a second thread. Please continue this discussion, if you wish to do so, in the "So Mr. V. was actually Diplomat33" thread.

Good point.

Just my thought exactly. i believe it was with that logic i convinced the mods to allow me to stay around.

LOL! But the mods *don't* want that thread to continue. We have to do a new thread to keep them happy.

@D33 - "Can't you just be a good boy and die?" - Alec Trevalyan to James Bond in Goldeneye.

Here's the deal: All moderations are meant to be private. It is between the moderators and the accused. People shouldn't even KNOW what people we are talking to. Why? Because we don't want the innocent to be harassed and the penalized but reformed to be pushed away.

You speak of a 'decent dossier size'. Please understand something. When we get someone who accuses another of an infraction, I look at full history of both the accused AND the accuser (I just caught a bad multi because he accused someone else to take the scent off of him a couple weeks ago). We do a full check and look up. We don't just say "minor offense, let him off" without knowing the FULL story and the complete history. I've banned people for very minor things because I warned them before or they've been reprimanded for the same thing before. Please don't think we don't have or get a full understanding of the entire situation and history.

This particular case was handled by a new moderator. He had help, but he did the job. It was discussed between two moderators and an admin before the final moderation was handed down. This wasn't just one person making a decision and it was done with. This was a careful deliberation and mutual effort of multiple people. I'm very happy with the end result, am proud of our new mod for how he handled it, and know that abge is happy with the outcome as well.

What is unfortunate, is that it became public. When that happened, we ended up with a lynch mob. And I know each member of that lynch mob will come in here and break down everything I say and demand things from the moderators and so on.

I'm afraid you won't get it.

I won't tell you what all was discussed. I won't even tell you what the punishment and moderation was.

All I will tell you is that it was deliberated by several moderators and we came up with a conclusion that we feel works the best.

I only regret that Diplomat33 will be dragged through the mud more the more we talk about it. It is unfortunate that he will get additional punishment from the community after the moderators punished him. And that is why I'd wish the threads about it would die. Yes, I responded angrily to a post that was 12 hours since last post, but it was still in the middle of the front page and I was sure it wasn't going to run off the page.

Jamiet:
There's a reason for the new thread. My open letter is not meant to further the assaults on Dip33 (who really should learn a thing or two about humility) but to give people a chance to have a real debate about the values we think important in this community and the means we have of protecting/enforcing them.
I think it democratically healthy to voice your dissent in a rational and objective-ish way. The other threads didn't allow for that.

@FK:
I appreciate your post and understand your reasons. They are valid.

But for valid that they are, the public nature of this case makes it thus that many users might feel like in the absence of a public verdict, the continued presence of Dip33 in our midst is a sign that justice might not have been served.
That is, by keeping your verdict and reasoning secret, and by letting us see that Dip33 is still here while others who have committed lighter offences were banned (I hold this from your post, tell me if I'm wrong), it's hard to escape a sense of arbitrary justice. And let's face it: arbitrary justice is no justice at all!

So to be clear: I'm not saying that justice wasn't served by your decision, but that the public nature of the issue, together with the silence surrounding the mods' actions, is such that it gives one many reasons to believe it wasn't.

Exactly.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding something important here, was naming Diplomat33 as the creator of the Mr.V account a mistake? What I read in these threads, up until FK's post here led me to believe that the mods purposefully named him as part of his punishment.

Like I said in another thread, I have no problem allowing the moderators to dictate judgement and punishment and I think it has worked well in the past, but Diplomat made the situation much worse by replying to the enraged members of the community.

@fk - It was only public because some of us checked on Mr. Vs status when we saw that big ol' X and it said he was the multi of D33. Can't blame us for making it public. It was already on Mr. V's public profile.

But D33 has become the new Diplofool (funny how people who put DiplomatXX for their name become that) and it is just soooooooo much fun to poke him with a stick.

As far as how it was handled. I'm actually fine with it. So I'm not tearing everything apart (assuming I was the person to whom you referred) and I said it in the other thread but I'll repeat it here, I think yebellz did a fine job.

So for my part, I apologize. I'm still goint to harrass him in other threads as he is a fool who deserves it, but I apologize to you mods for the trouble and frustration my thread caused you.

"What I read in these threads, up until FK's post here led me to believe that the mods purposefully named him as part of his punishment."

Either this wasn't the case, or it was an accident if it was. I believe the reason it became public was the banned message on an account, which was a minor flip-up by a new mod.

I understand has unfortunately become public, but we aren't under jurisdiction of any freedom of information acts or anything. If people feel that this has shown an inconsistency of moderation or that he got off lightly, there is a right for you as a player that states:
"Mod & admin actions are logged, and can be checked over if requested."

You can email kestas and have him go over the case himself to see if we were in error in our punishment and moderation of the case.

Also, if you listen to others, you can find some of the reasons for what we've done by some of the clear-headed people around you. I've seen many of the points the mods discussed mentioned in replies to each thread about this. I won't tell you which or anything, but I do think that some people understand a good chunk of what we discussed and why we did what we did.

Also, for the record, in other places where they keep moderation and punishment secret, a moderator wouldn't even respond to the community outcry and would simply wait for it to blow over.
I'm responding to stop the onslaught and because I tend to be headstrong ;)

I hope you saw my apology above, fk. It applies to all the mods and the members of the site who got riled up.

I do have a suggestion though. Perhaps a giant scarlet letter 'M' next to the name of any Meta/Multi who is getting a second chance. If they keep their nose clean for so many months (like parole) then the letter gets removed. That term would be up to the judges (mods) of course, but would serve well to shame the offenders and keep them on the straight and narrow. It goes without saying it should also be visible even in anon games so we know we have a second chance player trying to reform in our midst.

If we put a scarlet letter on multi's/meta's getting a second chance, our inboxes would fill up everytime they have a loyal alliance with someone.

We keep track of all people given a second chance routinely.

Honestly, if we find someone meta or multi'ing, they rarely get a second chance, so you'd rarely see it.

OK, so don't put it in anon games. But putting it on the forum to shame them still could be a good deterent and would even have n00bs wonderign what that letter is only to find out it's a punishment for being a screwup.

But looking at it now, while I was thinking Nathaniel Hawthorne, I see this could be viewed in much the same way as the Nazi's treated the Jews by making them wear the Star of David on their garments. Maybe it isn't such a good idea.

Well...
This thread has just been Godwin'ed.... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law)

@FK : HAHAHAHA!!!!
I like that one a lot! Totally meshes well with my intuitions. You gave me my first opportunity to click on the +1 link under your name!

Well, it sort of got Godwined, but in a different way. No one was accusing someone else of being a Nazi so much as someone recognized the comparison could be made between his own idea so maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

Oh! My intuitions weren't that this was a classic case of the rule by the way. It was more that I too have noticed this phenomenon but had not formulated it so brilliantly!

Godwin just said a comparison to nazis would be made.

Has anyone maentioned that D33 has just been a complete smartass about this? Very little remourse and where there is any it is clearly tongue and cheek.

Ironically, he has said he no longer wants to be a mod because it sounds like too much hard work (in other words, he knows he'd never get chosen now and is backtracking to save face). And still he has yet to actually apologize and show real remorse for his actions.

@ Draugnar
http://webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?viewthread=781695#781695
read it. It is a public apology.

An apology with an excuse at it's root is not an apology...

"Well, ill apologize to the community. I wasn't trying to gain points, just fool around in the forums. I hope the community will realize that. I will take what the mods decide to do with me. And i hope i am not shunned (thank goodness you are all not draugnar, j/k drag) Think about my situation here. "

All the bad grammar is left intact. First you say you will apologize (although you don't actually do it) then you give an excuse for why you did it and ask us to "Think about [your] situation." First, what situation? Are you somehow not in control of your own actions? Your situation was that you were wanred about things, pointed to the rules, and then promptly broke one. That is your situation. the more I think about it, the more pissed off I get that you weren't banned...

As far as I can see, it's a promise to apologize (if that).
We are diplomats my friend, and read with attention: "I'll apologize to the community" only says that you will, not that you have.
What's more, you're not really apologetic. You actually explain yourself, provide reasons, as though there is a sound rational for what you did that is more important than the ethical implications of your acts.

You lied. You played against the rules. You mocked the community. You have not offered a single apology yet.

Hahaha! Yeah... he opened that one so wide that both Draug and I ran through it at the same time!

OK, I issue a formal apology here, right now, to all the community. I made a poor choice and i am lucky the mods still let me play. There, i am done, and will say no more on the issue.