this is something i really hate to write. i wish i didn’t have to. i didn’t want to so badly that my friends had to give me a reality check on how much this has been hurting me.
i let users from other retrospring instances stay on my site with the condition that they would behave and respect me and my rules. most, if not all, users at the time agreed to respect this condition, to respect my rules and how i governed the site. however, it seems most or all of you have extensively mistaken my kindness and understanding for room to use me as a means of resolving your interpersonal problems.
none of you have the right to come to me, a website owner that none of you know personally, nor do i know any of you, and ask me to mediate problems of yours that occurred or are ongoing off-site. but i also cannot continue to resolve the on-site conflicts to the point you all demand of me.
i have been sent so many emails about user conflicts that i have lost count. i try to preserve every report, accusatory email, documents, any of it, to the best of my ability. i have an entire folder dedicated to all of this and it has dozens of files. i can no longer keep track of these things for you all. i cannot be the go-to when there is an interpersonal conflict and have it expected of me to not only resolve these conflicts by how you see fit (and usually, i feel as if i am expected to ban users on the word given to me), but to make judgement on extremely charged conflicts.
as i write, my email is being flooded by conflicting narratives that each frame a certain set of users in the wrong. i am not capable of passing judgement on who is right and wrong when i do not know any of you personally. it should not rest on me to make such massive calls based on the word of one or several users, and frankly, i find it extremely disrespectful and outright resent the fact that you all are constantly putting me in positions like this.
the bans of @Karube and @_ did not come easy for me or my mods. we reviewed those cases extensively, and both bans have brought us, especially me, immense grief in the short time since both were enacted. i have been so beyond stressed over spring that it is impacting my own mental health, when prior to the mass move to spring from fragsturztaube, i was doing a lot better. i had a lot planned for myself and moderating spring has taken up so much of my time that i not only am unable to focus on those personal goals, but i am actively backsliding. i am doing worse than i was when spring was just for my friends and i. this cannot continue.
i have given you all so many chances, so much leeway, and it’s been clear to my friends that you all either don’t respect me or respect me up to only a point; this is only now becoming clear to me, too. it’s not normal to expect site administrators and moderators to manage your personal conflicts to a point where it is hurting them. i have expressed the hurt and pain this has caused me before, to much agreement and sympathy from you all, only to be inundated shortly after with more expectations to manage user conflict.
moderators have a responsibility to protect their users to a certain extent. we cannot control every aspect of a conflict up to events that occur outside of the spaces we moderate. we cannot ban based on one or several users’ word because that will only cause more conflict with the rest of the user-base who will find it to be unfair. moderation requires such a careful balance of care, consideration, and understanding, and i have tried my best to balance those things. but when that balance is interrupted by outright disrespect and disregard for me, my well-being, and my site’s rules, all of which i have made as clear as i have thought possible on site, there is little i can do besides get stricter.
as of this document’s publishing, anonymous asks are disabled indefinitely. i will no longer give out warnings for rule breaking; i will instead temporarily ban for 3-5 days, and if a user returns and behaves the same way, their ban will be permanent.
i did not want to do this but you all have pushed me beyond my limit. i kept this site going against the advice of everyone in my life and i feel like a fool for being so stubborn and not listening to everyone who advised me to cut this out before it got to this point. but we’re here now.
please cooperate with me. please remember that the person behind this site is twenty years old; barely older than all of you. please remember that i am a person and not built or equipped to handle and pass judgement on every single personal conflict brought to me.
please show me the kindness you all promise to show and instead inundate me with expectations of resolving your personal conflicts.
remember that this site is hosted on a server in my house. it is next to me as i type. i can pull the plug at any time and we are getting closer to a point where i will have to pull the plug on spring for the sake of my well-being.
please remember the person behind the screen. thank you.