Yep. Saw that when I first asked about the villain trying to kill your brother, is to be a lover, was odd. Then asked if the one girl was an LI, seemed like it. Was told nope and he ignored my issues with the villain. Thus I put it on mute, or had done so.
Its not surprising when the words were screaming at me, run away. I did. Glad I was right after all. I wasn’t sure if it was just a me thing getting very bad vibes.
If you have read as much of this thread as you claim, then you have seen evidence that cultivator-anon is ignoring or overlooking multiple slurs from his community. That he and his fans have called members of this community pedophiles for no reason. That he has threatened legal action.
You aren’t “forced” to call bullshit on this. You are choosing to call bullshit on this because for some asinine reason you have decided that the known racist is more believable than the moderation team who, as per the title of this thread, primarily banned him for his racism and lack of moderation above anything else. You are taking the known disingenuous racist at his word while refusing to extend the same courtesy to the mod team. To be blunt, that says more about you than it does about the moderation.
The things anon posted on his server absolutely are relevant to the ban. It is literally the reason why he was banned. He was banned for not moderating his server, dude. If you cannot grasp this, then you did not follow the conversation as closely as you pretend to. The things Anon posted after the ban are also relevant, because they establish character. Someone who is willing to baselessly call other people pedophiles to damage their reputation absolutely will lie about his side of the story.
Which brings me to this:
The issue, at is core, is that the author was known for cultivating a racist community, known for not doing anything to reign that community in, and known for being openly disdainful of the CoG community. The author has, repeatedly through his online persona (which he did not even bother to hide or change), shown himself to be someone that Choice of Games does not want to associate with.
This does warrant the removal of both the author and his game from the forum. Full stop.
You’re acting like this guy was banned specifically for disagreeing with Juan and not, I dunno, consistently shitting up the Politics thread while denying genocide and accusing the people who disagree with him of antisemitism.
NGL your wording here kind of makes it sound like you have an axe to grind. “Chronically online.” “And his ilk.” Why, exactly, are you saying this about Juan? Why are you singling him specifically about being “chronically online”? What does “ilk” in this context even mean - the people who also thought Ramses’ genocide denial was a problem?
Juan was not the only one reporting Ramses and if other people were flagging him, they did that independently from Juan. And to be blunt you are strongly overestimating the friendship between Bryce and Juan as well.
Why are you defaulting to the assumption that the reports against Ramses were false? This is, to be blunt, an utterly baseless thing to say. Were you there? I was. The fact that you assume the reports were baseless indicates that you either had no problem with what Ramses was posting, or you are once again defaulting to the assumption that the mods are acting in bad faith with no evidence. Again, this says more about you than it does about the moderation.
Three things to note here:
Firstly, there is reasonable proof that Anon has been talked to about his discord before. Again, they made him remove the link to his discord from the forum, because he refused to moderate it. This shows that Anon has been made aware that the way he handles his server is an issue to the CoG staff.
Secondly, you speak of “burden of proof” as if this forum operates under a legal hierarchy where the mods are both professional judges and lawyers and need to be capable of providing recepts and paper-trails for every decision they make. And this just… isn’t that. The mods are unpaid volunteers.
Thirdly, CoG is fully transparent about what kind of company it is, and what its values are. As someone who was working on a ChoiceScript game he hoped to get publish, Anon was aspiring to become a business partner with Choice of Games. Therefore, Anon should have researched the values of the company he was actually trying to form a working relationship with, and adjusted his online presence accordingly. He did not do this. Anyone with a basic understanding of how businesses and social spaces work could have foreseen that this would be an issue. Even if they hadn’t banned Anon, I don’t see a world where they publish him if his behaviour continued.
Could the mods release more screenshots? Yeah, sure, probably. Should they be obligated to release screenshots every single time someone disagrees with one of their decisions or demands evidence? I personally do not think so.
This is not a court of law. This is not a constitution. This is not a democracy. It is a forum run by a company that does not want to be associated with racism, homophobia, and sexism. There is no obligation to satisfy your demand for “burden of proof” when it comes to a guy who has very openly and consistently shown himself to be antithetical to their values.
It is good that the author was willing to condemn his own fandom for advocating incestuous pedophilia. It’s a very low bar, but he cleared it. Good for him.
You know what this tells me though? It tells me that the author absolutely is willing to moderate his server when it offends him personally. This, in turn, tells me that the author does not consider homophobia, racism, or sexism offensive. You need to say the most heinous deplorable shit (or simply go “off-topic”) for him to even begin to protest. That is the picture this paints.
I’m going to probably bow out of this discussion since it seems to just be going in circles at this point, but I want to quickly thank the mods for their extreme patience and efforts to keep the community safe and informed. You lot have been subject to rude attacks on your characters, constant goalpost moving/refusal to acknowledge the truth of what happened by bad-faith actors, and people taking your efforts to moderate for granted, and that’s just what we can see publicly. I can’t imagine what else you may have seen in private. I hope you guys are taking care of yourselves and stepping back as needed.
Maybe not until things die down a bit so that people don’t try to derail it, but I do still think it would be a good idea to have a new thread specifically for discussing the logistics of the new rule. Might make it easier for authors to ask about what CoG expects of them for moderating their own author-run fan spaces, let them know what the resolution process would look like if CoG was to receive complaints about their spaces, receive advice on how to implement moderating bots, etc.
Hrm, I’m conflicted on this. I do understand the purpose behind the ban, but at the same time the round about way of saying “We didnt ban him because of the discord. But because of constant compaints issued to the mod team, and wasting the staffs tine”. Its essentially banning him for the Discord, if thats where the majority of complaints are about, no?
So just say that. Wording it the other way just seems like youre trying to avoid blowback from the choice. 
But, the Discord server is his problem. If the complaints you receive come from people seeing stuff THERE and not HERE. It is a little ridiculous, and IS overreaching. The rules from these forums should not extend farther than THESE forums. So, i guess it really boils down to WHAT the complaints were about that made you take action. If they were about HIS discord, its an iffy call.
Do the SS’s show disgusting talk? Yes. Does that Discord look like a cesspool? Yup. Is that behavior that would be tolerated HERE? Nope, and thank goodness. But it is a private Discord, right? So what ever goes on in that server, or complaints made from posts THERE should have no bearing here. Cause its a PRIVATE server.
So, i get the ban, but at the same time eeeeeeeeeeh.
I personally think this rule may come back to bite ya, because youre trying to enforce your guidelines on other private spaces to as you said “prevant negative complaints, that take staff time”. Which is a steep slope.
Bummer that i wont be able to beat up bandits with my Kitsune anymore. But ya guys gotta do what ya gotta do, i 'spose. 
Just please preface your post with:
“Thread too long. Didn’t read. Here’s my two uninformed cents.”
If you have any specific questions, you can ask or DM me.
Mods, when you have time, please address this on this thread. This is the one of the most important point about this whole incident, and one of the reasons why this new rule had been put in place.
I already read the whole thread, and I don’t care about discussing/debating ethics, mod responsibilities and supposed friendships, or what this forum is supposed to be about.
Evidence for posterity in a sense before this thread is closed.
As a European, I can’t tell you the joy I feel every time I hear about the US’s government envoys promising support to every extremist and neonazi group they can find here in the name of ‘defending free speech’.
Wait, did I say “joy”? I think I meant “cold rage”.
Anyway, not really the topic. As I said before, I did have fun with Aura Clash (and as others mentioned, it is nice to have a writer who was pretty diligent in updating their WiP), but reading through the thread, the ban is more than justified (and honestly, while it’s probably the least relevant fact out of this whole discussion, the fact that Cu-anon took the time to put an anti-gay code in his game paints a pretty clear picture, as far as I’m concerned).
Parts of your argument really have nothing to do with Aura Clash so I haven’t wanted to post, but seven hours later and people are still bringing up your message. So here’s my only contribution.
From what I remember in the politics thread. What Ramses was calling another member of this forum, and the people from history that the other guy defended (if we’re thinking about the same person), were pretty extreme.
The mods cleaned it quickly so I don’t doubt you never knew. But I’m worried people in the future will read your posts and think that their punishment was anything but justified.
anyway this is moving away from what this thread should be about, see ya!
It’s funny, the anti-gay code would have got Aura Clash rejected immediately even if it somehow got to the submission stage despite all the unsavory characters surrounding its development
That’s the first time I’ve seen someone mention this, and it’s true. In my opinion, the author would have eventually ousted himself another way if this didn’t happen. You can’t hide who you are forever. Man is a creature of habit, but He falls out of habits habitually.
Off-topic, but I couldn’t help but notice your Slipknot fixation, recently. Not Long For This World is my favorite 'Knot song. I’m a big WANYK guy. Best album from them.
I dont see the point of having a thread on that, it’s a legitimate ban.
The game is here, the discord is about the game, the discord’s community comes here and creates issues, they are not moderated by the discord’s owner, it creates useless work for the mods and stains the forum’s community.
The inaction from the game’s owner is equivalent to them encouraging this behavior, they are responsible for their community and their game.
I was actually one of the very first people who ever commented on the Aura Clash thread (I was literally the 5th comment), and (regrettably, now) they’re still some of my most liked comments on this forum. Back then it was a much shorter demo but I genuinely thought the writing was good and the story seemed to be heading in an interesting direction.
I don’t remember when exactly I stopped keeping up with it but I can say that it was not a long time that had passed before I realized what type of audience the author was really trying to cater to. I stopped caring about that story quite early on because of this and just hoped that the kinds of people he panders to wouldn’t affect the rest of the forum.
Clearly my expectations were too high. I still haven’t found the time to read through this entire thread. Hats off to the mod team here for making this decision, and for being so incredibly patient in dealing with all the bad-faith arguments here.
I don’t think the Mods need to put together evidence for consumption like we’re all some kind of jury on whether this is good enough for each of our individual fee-fees. Many people are banned or timed out and there is no reason to turn any or all of these cases into public trials.
There is not a debate on whether this ban is going to be rescinded. There is no need for evidence for posterity. The ban occurred, for reasons well established, and it has been announced, and a new rule is being instated for clarity and the forum health going forward. Done.
Thanks to @Gower, we already have a thread aimed at clarifying the norms that affect how moderation rules play out on the forums:
That thread even has precedent for being shut down for lengthy cooldown periods, which might end up happening in any conversation about the new norms, too. 
But since for now we’re talking about it here: Getting suspended or banned for “soaking up too much moderator time” or similar is a necessary fallback rule on pretty much any forum. No ruleset can capture all the ways someone might be seriously disruptive. It’s rarely that hard for an asshole to find some perch from which despite breaking no rules they’re still ruining the quality of the community.
In the case under discussion – where someone’s been running a toxic forum adjacent to ours that’s kept creating spillover problems despite repeated (but one-sided) efforts at a solution – I have complete sympathy with invoking the principle.
At the same time, it’s a principle I’d advise any mod to use extremely sparingly, as a last resort, not letting it slip into becoming business as usual. (So, as in this case, try to come up with a rule whose application means you won’t have to fall back on the “mod headache” rule in similar future situations.) Otherwise it can readily turn into an ostracism machine, where a person whose views are unpopular among a big enough minority of forum members finds they either have to shut-up-and-sit-down or get banned for generating so much friction.
When those people’s views aren’t rulebreaking, just unpopular, that kind of outcome is in massive tension with the vision Bryce articulated of an inclusive, respectful, and compassionate community. We end up excluding good people and intimidating and disappointing others.
The more mods slip into relying on “they were just too damn much trouble” as a principle for shutting people down – or other justifications whose tone verges even closer to “this ain’t a democracy, kid, and we’ll run it however we like” – the more we’ll end up with fear and resentment as prominent community characteristics, and the fiercer the periodic bursts of backlash will be.
So to anyone who’s reacted to that justification with instinctive queasiness: I sympathize with the instinct! I don’t think you’re arguing in bad faith. I just think we really disagree about the potential impact of crapfest racist troll-farms.
Thanks to anonymity and the asymmetrical impact of assholishness, the culture of online spaces naturally trends toward “sewer” over time. An unmoderated forum that celebrates slurs and viciousness can degrade the culture of a neighboring forum pretty fast if you let them, especially if they exhaust your volunteer mods.
When you realize that a prominent author is leading part of your community that way, and the first couple things you’ve tried to deal with the problem haven’t worked, decisive action can be better than keeping experimenting with more tweaks to the rulebook.
To the handful of folk who’ve offered some version of “the Discord is irrelevant, why even share screenshots from there, only evidence of problems on this forum should be relevant to rule enforcement and/or mod exhaustion” – if all I’d seen were screenshots of trolls and harassers appearing repeatedly on/around the Aura Clash thread, I’d be a lot more dubious about banning the author. What reason would we have to think that’s his fault? That, to me, would be the “too much work for the mods” ban in its worst form…a troll brigade hits a thread, and the author gets punished for it.
But seeing that cultivanon’s been cheerfully serving as ringmaster of a next-door troll circus is what brings me onboard with the decision to take more drastic steps.
(Edit: removed an aside about cultivanon being willing to moderate for some things, since @fsix has called the accuracy of that take into question and it’s not central to my point.)
Aura Clash isn’t dead. If you want to play the game the author has a website and a patreon, and is planning to move the game to twine. You can even join the discord if you’re willing to take the lid off the demon core.
Just for fun, I did check if this is true now that the code is public on cogdemos again.
Seems so, but since it was republished after the ban, I just can’t take it seriously.
But look what else they left for us, curious code-divers:
https://cogdemos.ink/play/cultivator-anon/aura-clash/mygame/scenes/chapter8.txt
A little dogwhistle.
Do I think that? Hmm. I think I won’t take your word for it and I think there was a time when these rumours could be put to rest and that time was before he was banned. I think it doesn’t matter anymore.
If the link to the discord had already been removed, I can’t really see the issue here. Anon isn’t responsible for the actions of others, and things that happen on a separate platform are on a separate platform. Who cares.
If someone was going to lose their marbles and start talking that way here it’s a them issue. I doubt he’s inciting them to spill onto the forums and post hatespeech.
Just my take though. I didn’t watch the thread like a hawk or anything but he never came off bad to me when I was peeking in for updates.
can someone explain to me why the author themselves was banned, as they don’t say anything bad in the screenshots?
The original post, in addition to several posts upthread from the mods explain this many times over. There’s a search function that you can use to find their posts.
I must be out of the loop because I have no idea what you’re suggesting this is a reference to.