2b2t Wiki:Ban Status of User Orsond

This is a talk/discussion page concerning the permanent ban of Orsond from the wiki

Unanimity of Staff opinion on the matter
As a staff team, we are obligated to enforce the word and spirit of the Rules. Normally this is incredibly straightforward; activity is encouraged where possible, new pages are brought to a base level of quality, disruptive editors and vandals are banned, etc. Many of us are from the same section of the community. We do not let this govern how we deal with issues in the wiki; we are obligated to be as objective as possible. In the effort to be objective, though, sometimes we allow greater leeway than should be to individuals who had drama with us respectively on 2b2t itself. It is the unanimous opinion of the entire staff team (including myself, Chipoff, Galvatron, Henry, leijurv, and rpb) that Orsond has acted in a manner that is deserving of a ban, and that he has been deserving of a ban for a while now.

Orsond's malicious editing in 2021 and subsequent ban from the wiki discord
We shied away from banning him previously because we were concerned that to ban Orsond represented a conflict of interest for us and that it would cause more problems than it would solve - the wiki is meant to be an unbiased place to document 2b2t’s history above all else. At that time he had been editing maliciously with the intention of disrupting editing through re-editing pages and applying a negative spin on the contents, as well as adding complete misinformation, in an effort to portray the subjects negatively. These edits were reverted and he was banned from the wiki discord for the bad faith drama he was causing at that point. He stopped editing the wiki for a while and did not edit the wiki for over a year, excepting several isolated edits in the summer.

Orsond's disruptive editing to prove a point
He returned recently to edit on November 19th. The contents of the edit pertain to drama concerning a Spawnmason meetup. At its face, the edit may just appear to be a somewhat spun edit. That itself is correct, but there’s more to it than that. It was prompted by a discussion between myself and D_loaded and was put on the wiki in bad faith.

Background
In that discussion with D_loaded, I approached him for the 3rd or 4th time this year to please have some DonFuer members edit the wiki. Thus far this has not led to any actions on his part on the wiki. D_loaded and I are not often on agreeable terms on 2b2t itself, and that’s okay. I was asking him to send DonFuer members to write about some of the recent DonFuer bases, and to update the group’s page. DonFuer is certainly one of the larger groups on the server, and up until a week ago (at my prompting), no members had edited the related wiki pages in many months.

The discussion between myself and D_loaded got heated; we both became annoyed with some of the things the other was saying. The final point of discussion in that conversation was him trying to convince me the wiki engages in censorship. I got more heated than I should have. I challenged him to find an example, and he was unable to do so with as much time as he wanted. After failing to prove his point, he asked me if, hypothetically, orsond made an edit concerning the aforementioned meetup drama, would I revert the edit? Reverting edits willy-nilly based on subject matter is not a good idea, which ruled out a ‘yes’ outright. I also could not answer ‘no’ in good faith as the edit was hypothetical and there was nothing to ponder over. Therefore I did not give a direct answer. That discussion ended at 4:54 PM Est on November 19.

Why these edits are disruptive
Orsond’s edit to the Fifth Column page was pushed a mere 4 minutes later. Orson was clearly in discussion with D_loaded to this effect. Orsond re-entered the wiki community to make a controversial edit to prove a point. He made a purposefully inflammatory edit in the hope that it would be reverted in order to prove that D_loaded’s allegations of wiki censorship were correct. That edit has not been reverted, nor was a similar inflammatory edit Orsond made the same day. These edits spin the meetup drama in a biased manner, and clearly are not meant to be constructive. This comes after months of Orsond bullying and defaming the participants in the meetup and their supporters and friends. With a relationship like that to the subject matter, it is difficult to be objective. He cited no unbiased sources for this controversial edit either.

Instead of reverting these bad faith edits, I have been working on a suitable replacement, and have been collaborating with a large number of community members of many differing viewpoints to replace these biased edits. The wiki is about collaboration above all else, and an event as publicized as the meetup drama ought to be talked about objectively. Orsond has demonstrated he is not interested in being objective on this subject.

Orsond's conduct on the Corner Base discussion
While waiting for others to chip in their opinions on that draft (which as of posting this is still ongoing), I began writing other pages, as well as encouraging the creation of new pages by other wiki contributors. One of the more recent pages is the draft on Corner Base. I wrote the page. Orsond changed the page to say that BIKMUNNI leaked the base instead of zipoffs. After I undid his changes and we went back and forth a few times, we started debating on the talk page. I am quite sure this is the longest talk page on the wiki at this point. It is there for anyone that wants to read the page, but the tldr of why I have brought it up here is that
 * 1) Orsond has been caught outright lying on the page
 * 2) Orsond appears to be cyberbullying BIKMUNNI and is trying to use the wiki to further this
 * 3) Orsond is editing disruptively
 * 4) Orsond is spreading misinformation
 * 5) Orsond is a textbook example of a Single-purpose account. Single-purpose accounts are accounts that exist for one purpose (usually the promotion of a narrow viewpoint or the creation of drama. He fits both of these labels.)
 * 6) Orsond is editing in Bad faith
 * 7) Orsond briefly encouraged brigading from an external platform

The Corner Base discussion is what finally prompted the discussion that resulted in the creation of this page. Orsond withdrew from the discussion, but was wholly unable to refute the arguments made against him editing the page, and furthermore was caught lying and misrepresenting facts. It is the universal opinion of the entire staff team that Orsond ought to be banned from the wiki.

While this header is extremely long-winded, it is done with the purpose of providing all active users an understanding into the staff’s unanimous reasoning as to why we feel Orsond deserves a ban, and why we furthermore feel we should not be the ones to vote on it alone. That is where you all come in. As the active wiki community, you all no-doubt have your own opinions on the matter as well. As a staff team, we are meant to serve your interests. Here we’ve decided that the best way of doing that should not just be to have the staff voting, but to have the entire community as well.

Ground Rules
Votes are governed by global policy concerning global bans. We have elected to use this as a starting point for our ground rules as no comprehensive local policy exists, recognizing that it is not 100% applicable to our situation. As a ban vote is normally conducted by the Staff, Staff voting precedent will also apply. After discussion with stewards, the deciding vote will be 60% and not the standard 51%. This vote differs from a standard request for comment in that we are temporarily transferring what is normally a staff vote to the community. It is still a vote.

As a result of this conglomeration of global policies, local precedents, and local rules, the ground rules for this vote are as follows:
 * 1) A decisive vote deciding to ban Orsond (which needs at least 60% of votes in favor) will be permanent unless overturned by a similar community vote
 * 2) A vote deciding to not ban Orsond will result in a return to the status quo and does not in any way prevent future votes on the same subject after a reasonable time has passed
 * 3) The vote will last 5 days minimum, and can be extended if discussion is still ongoing
 * 4) There are 3 sections comments can be put in - For Ban, Against Ban, Neutral about Ban
 * 5) Only accounts created before the start of the vote are eligible to vote, although new accounts are allowed and encouraged to share their opinions in the Neutral section
 * 6) The use of alternate accounts is strictly forbidden
 * 7) Be respectful

Voting Directions

 * 1) Read Ground Rules if you have not already
 * 2) To vote, place a comment in the respective section that starts with I support banning Orsond, I do not support banning Orsond, or I am neutral concerning banning Orsond. You can also use ✅ or . This will make counting votes easier
 * 3) Follow that with your arguments on the matter, please include substantive arguments as opposed to just saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’
 * 4) Sign your comment by typing --~ at the end of it
 * 5) You may also constructively debate other users' points in their respective sections by responding to their posts, please place the response to another user’s point below their post (or as close to it as it can appropriately be put), and state that you are responding to that user’s specific post(s). This will become very confusing very quickly otherwise. Challenging a users point does not invalidate their vote.

Votes and Arguments for Banning Orsond
✅— I support banning Orsond. It remains my opinion that it is in the best interest of the Wiki and the broader 2b2t community that this platform remain as neutral and unbiased as possible. Usually, blocks/bans handed out by the staff team have been restricted to overt vandals who make no effort to retain the appearance of legitimate contribution, or those who egregiously violate our rules (e.g. posting the personal information of other users). In previous internal staff discussions, I have come out strongly opposed over anything approaching a permanent ban of Orsond from the Wiki and our Discord, despite my acknowledgment that the majority of his contributions to both have been in the interest of agitation and peddling drama. Just over a year ago, Orsond made a series of defamatory and inaccurate edits to the Joey_Coconut article, intended to damage his reputation, as Joey mentioned above. Fellow staff member Leijurv reverted the edits, removed their visibility, and blocked Orsond for a short period. A few months later, Orsond brought up these events to me in a direct message, we discussed the topic to see if we might find common ground, and I believed we came to a mutual agreement. It was my hope that this sort of weaponization of the Wiki would not continue following this discussion. As such, I was dismayed to see his recent edits to Fifth Column and SpawnMasons follow the trend of using the Wiki to propagandize and stir drama. It is my opinion that these edits were not made with a neutral intent to document history, but to spin events to fit a particular narrative he and associates have been pushing. In turn, I have come to the conclusion that if left unbanned Orsond will continue to disruptively edit the Wiki in the pursuit of furthering grudges against other entities within the community.

--Henry (talk) 20:23, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

✅I support banning Orsond because of the reasoning listed on the header of this document, which I have largely authored. I must also add my personal experience with him to this post, which amounts to him:
 * 1) Harassing me to the point that I was forced to block multiple accounts of his on multiple platforms, and then to block other people that he repeatedly attempted to reach out to me through
 * 2) Lying to third parties about me being racist and antisemitic in order to attempt to damage my reputation
 * 3) Similar treatment to friends of mine (Note, this point and the two above have been ongoing for almost a year and a half)
 * 4) Astroturfing a campaign against the participants of the aforementioned Spawnmason meetup that resulted in rampant unfounded allegations of pedophilia against them. He did not make direct accusations of that nature himself, but he presented a skewed narrative that led to widespread rumors that unfairly harmed innocent people.

It is my firm opinion that Orsond is nothing more than a bully, who often starts drama and picks fights for disingenuous reasons. Someone that acts how he does has no place in a constructive environment built on collaboration, and I must therefore recommend he be permanently banned. I must also point out, because I know it will be accused - Orsond, the creation of this page was entirely optional. The staff team is unanimous in its opinion that you should be banned. We could have banned you today with a unanimous vote and we would have been well within our right to - we all believe you have earned it a long time ago.

We also felt you did not have a fair chance, though, considering conflicts of interest caused by your regular poor treatment of the majority of the staff team for an extended period. This page has been created with significant consultation from the site stewards. Now is your chance to make your case and attempt to convince the wiki community that your actions concerning the wiki have been correct.

--Joey Coconut1 (talk) 19:17, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning Orsond for the reasons listed above. His behavior has caused consistent and unnecessary drama that the community would be better off without. Setting aside any personal grievances, it is clear to me that banning Orsond will be beneficial to the wiki as a whole.

--Chipoff (talk) 20:45, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning Orsond. His edits are usually very biased and I think he should be banned --BrochachoA14 (talk) 20:38, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning Orsond for the reasons listed above. He has a lengthy history of harassment and being a bad faith actor, marketing baseless and defamatory narratives, and sabotaging this wiki to suit his own agenda.

--Beard2b2t (talk) 21:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning Orsond. Orsond is regularly seen changing stories, fabricating evidence, and generally just spreading misinformation to the public. This causes unnecessary drama within what is supposed to be an unbiased community. The majority of his edits are biased and targeted towards making people look bad, and I feel that his banning from the wiki would be a beneficial decision.

--Osmobyte (talk) 21:11, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning Orsond for ongoing plainly bad faith editing and sealioning. Leijurv (talk) 22:39, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning orsond for spreading misinformation. --Hovecs (talk) 00:42, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I support banning Orsond for the reasons listed above. --YoMoBoYo (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Votes and Arguments against Banning Orsond
I do not support the ban of orsond I will outline some of the points raised by the no votes here.


 * 1) Harassiment griefing your bases on an anarchy server and taunting you about it is common behaviour in the community. You have done so several times yourself.
 * 2) Racism and anti-semitism is well documented. You were recorded on a community podcast saying that you were proud of the Hitler statue, particularly the black sun around its base, including the ISIS cube, a gigantic replica of the Christchurch Mosque Shooters AR-15 (complete with writing of the names of other killers on the weapon) and had a Happy Merchant map art at your base. I do not understand how any of this could not be construed as Racism and anti-semitism. As Henry points out, I had edited Joey's pages to show this behaviour as his own edits to his own page spin a false narrative that he was a good faith actor during his tenure in the community. Original edits of Joey's wiki page (at the time, the single largest page on the wiki) did not cover any of these points. However, Joey had edited multiple untruths on my page and pages of my associates, such as Zetrax, to spin a narrative supporting his view of myself and my associates.
 * 3) Similar treatment to friends of mine this is vague and unsubstantiated.
 * 4) Astroturfing campaign We uncovered and reported on a serious ethical issue in the community, where 26 year old members of the Spawn Masons group met up with a 15 year girl at a bar, took her to dinner and then hung out at her house late at night. This included taking the child out of parental supervision. There has been allegations from members of the SpawnMasons that one of the adults went into her bedroom. We originally asked for clarification of these events, which resulted in off colour jokes, accusing us of "simping" for the minor, and other ridiculous statements about how adults meeting children from an online video game was normal behaviour. Indeed the leader of the SpawnMasons is quoted in saying "members meet up all the time" and that there was nothing wrong with them doing so. This led to some members of your own group disagreeing with the response, leaking the SkyMasons base to me and other members of The Fifth Column, and the release of the video. The incident has led to very healthy discussion within our community about child safety and the roles that adults play in the community relating to children.

I do not find myself surprised by the administrators putting forward a request to ban me from contributing to the wiki. The SpawnMasons are a well known group who have considerable control over the 2b2t community. This includes holiday events, the map art community and vast in game wealth used to recruit people into the group.

The wiki is no different, with SpawnMason members composing of 80% of the administrator team, 100% if including former allegiances.

They are obviously upset that their repeated controversies have let a dark mark on their tenure in this community and that has now been recorded enduringly on the 2b2t wiki. This is evident as on November 20th, Spawn Mason member futsin removed the edits regarding the controversy from the Spawn Mason page but immediately reverted.

If the interaction between the minor and the adults, including the leaking of the base, did not occur or are factually incorrect, Administrators/Spawnmasons could have easily refuted it and changed the page.

I think the vote for the change of my ban status on the wiki goes against the best interests of this community. I strongly believe a new Proposed Changes to 2b2t Wiki Staff is in order to bring back fairness, balance and impartiality back to the admin team.

Orsond (talk) 21:31, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not support the ban of orsond For the reasons stated above. Orsond is a major community member and has access to high quality information and history about the server. The motivation to Ban him is purely political, and is not based in reason or evidence. Furthermore, Joey Coconut's recount of our discussion is inaccurate. I was quickly able to provide the skymasons grief as an example of censorship, the issue that has started this entire discussion. Joey Coconut reacted with anger and began to personally attack me and my group, throwing insults and refusing to give a straight answer. There is a reason most of the 2b2t community don't use this wiki and its because its a well known fact Joey Coconut and the other Spawnmasons are bias-actors, using the wiki to promote their version of events. D loaded (talk) 21:50, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not support banning Orsond, the reasons behind this vote are tainted with drama that has no involvement with the wiki. This can clearly be seen behind the reasons given by the staff team to ban Orsond.

What is seen as malicious editing by some can be seen as actually beneficial by others, no one has the perspective on events especially if those people have a bias towards one another, this being block game drama. Though you state the wiki doesn't have any censorship, the stories on this wiki are through the perspectives of those in power, the current staff team, who all are aligned in some way with the group known as the Spawnmasons which leads to a more bias perspective on events that occurred.

This can be seen under "Orsond's conduct on the Corner Base discussion", which talks about him lying, cyberbullying, being disruptive, spreading misinformation, editing in bad faith, brigading on other platforms, and being a single-purpose account. These all are just ways to push the current team's perspective rather than taking another perspective who has an unpleasant past with the team. You can see this in the votes of Henry and Joey Coconut. Technically we all pushed our agenda on people, that's because 2b2t is anarchy. Anarchy breeds chaos as much as you try to create some structure of history with there being heroes and villains. The fact is on a server like this, that doesn't exist there is no good or bad. This is just another example of Minecraft LARP (Live Action Role Play), and I hope that this ban does not occur.

I would also like to bring up an old video by MrCK10 which shows past censorship and bias by the staff team which should be noted by other voters.

SoiledCold (talk) 22:00, 2 December 2022 (UTC)SoiledCold 21:57, December 2 2022 (UTC)

I do not support the ban of orsond I do not support the ban for orsond. I have many issues with how this website is specifically run, but these do not matter in the same way that personally disliking orsond or his behavior does not matter. My biggest problem here is that the arguments used often use phrases or terms that in my opinion are way too vague or subjective. Who defines what ‘disrupting’ is, or what ‘inflammatory’ is, not to mention phrases such as ‘bullying’, ‘drama’ and ‘misinformation’. We need to keep in mind how open to interpretation these things are. In real life you could have an extended debate on it, involving experts and judges. This is just a small wiki about a minecraft server. I don’t think the cases presented here are important enough to have never-ending technical debates over. In my opinion moderators should be very hesitant to punish or censor players and only focus on very specific problems that are beyond debate, such as obvious misinformation, spamming, vandalizing, doxxing etc.

Banning is way too heavy handed, considering that:
 * Many of the criticisms are using terms that are way too vague/subjective.
 * The admins are way too involved with ongoing conflicts to look at and act upon this both objectively and proportionally.
 * ‘damages’ caused by orsond are extremely easy to counter and fix.
 * The wiki would lose access to a knowledgeable player and community leader.

Choosing to ban, would set a very questionable standard. I suggest instead a post is made describing the criticisms of orsond. That way, whenever any edits by orsond need to be undone, the editor can just refer to that post to legitimize it.

--Franknificant (talk) 22:47, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

---  I do not support the ban of orsond I believe that Orsond should not be banned for the reasons about because of the clear affiliation that the admin team has with opposition of Orsond. If he doesn't get to have a place on the 2b2t wiki, what is stopping the moderation team from removing other people who also want to oppose the masons? This is a bad precedent, and overall, the admin team needs to clean it up. --Lukent (talk) 22:51, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not support the banning of Orsond. Many of the admins of this wiki are all in the same group, and have the same types of conflicts of interest in this situation that they claim that Orsond has (and he may have).

For instance: In regards to the meetup with a minor, the minor and the perpetrators of the meetup were all in the Spawnmasons, the same Spawnmasons that are the admins of this very Wiki. In regards to the Bikmunni situation, the Spawnmasons are directly involved in this situation as well, and have their own theories about how and why the corner base was griefed. This is a situation of abusing power, by accumulating that power, all within one group (Spawnmasons) and using that wiki power to try and control the narrative.

Banning is way too heavy handed, considering that:

Many of the criticisms are using terms that are way too vague/subjective. The admins are way too involved with ongoing conflicts to look at and act upon this both objectively and proportionally. ‘damages’ caused by orsond are extremely easy to counter and fix. The wiki would lose access to a knowledgeable player and community leader.

Choosing to ban, would set a very questionable standard. I suggest instead a post is made describing the criticisms of orsond. That way, whenever any edits by orsond need to be undone, the editor can just refer to that post to legitimize it.

--Forceken (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not support the ban of orsond For all the reasons listed above.

--Gravi (talk) 00:49 3 december 2022 (UTC)

I do not support the ban of Orsond. To me, this seems like a heavy-handed, immature response to an easily solvable problem (The dispute regarding the Corner Base article) by the admin team. As mentioned above by Orsond, the admin team is composed primarily of members of the Spawnmasons, a group known for their zeal when it comes to abusing admin privileges to shut down any criticism or opposition of them. Furthermore, I believe that many of the points made by those in favour of banning Orsond are either bad faith, or do not pertain to actual wiki-related activites. Many of these reasons, as pointed out by Franknificant, are very vague or subjective. Regarding the accusations that Orsond is engaging in cyberbullying by publishing something that the staff team believes to be false, I myself have had false information published about me on this wiki by a staff team member. So, my question to them is this: Did this constitute cyberbullying? If not, then how is the situation regarding Bikmunni any different? If a staff member published false information due to a personal grudge against me, then based upon the above reasons listed by them, should they also face any consequences? Finally, I believe that this situation highlights a bigger issue with the current wiki staff. The 2b2t community is a diverse one with many groups of players at odds with one another for silly or more serious reasons. A neutral space where unbiased information should be presented being controlled by any one group of players is an issue, even more so when this group has a reputation for abusing their power to quell dissent or criticism. There have been and continue to be instances where they censor information that would present individuals or the entire group in a negative light. Therefore, I believe that a new staff team composed of different, more diverse members of the community would be far more effective than the current clique of crybullies composing the staff team.

--Zetrax (talk) 01:18 3 december 2022 (UTC)

Votes and Arguments Neutral Concerning Banning Orsond
As a general comment, I have noticed several things. Looking at all this, I am now of the opinion that if others are also open to discussion to the effect, we should work towards a compromise. --Joey Coconut1 (talk) 02:54, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) Nearly all votes for banning orsond are from the Spawnmasons and friends, while nearly all votes against banning orsond are from the Fifth Column and friends.
 * 2) People not affiliated with either group have largely not weighed in on this discussion
 * 3) As a result of the previous two points, this is nothing more than a contest between the two groups to see who has more members with wiki accounts - it does look or feel remotely constructive
 * 4) The respective criticisms from one side to the other are largely the same - Person 'A' edited about something Person 'A' was involved in, and Person 'B' feels that Person 'A' misrepresented something in their edit