Topic Title

Traf, just because you are doing this out-of-duty, it doesn't mean this get's any better. Why? Let me picture you a good example.

You are a police man. You do a good job at it. You stay impartial and unbiased, no matter who your friend or foe is, since this is your job. You decide that you spy for someone 'outside of your duty' time. Does this make it any less awkward? That you as a police man do something you shouldn't do, even if that is outside of your duty? The answer is no, because your primary job is still police man, and if this action hits the light you will have some talks with your chef. It's similar as a moderator. While you most likely won't suffer from a penalty here because it's Astroflux, let me tell you that you would have been demoted in other game communities already. I have a friend who used to be a moderator in the game "Dark Orbit" - He gave me inside informations of the game outside of his duty times. This got leaked accidentally. Even if it was outside of his duty time he still got demoted for sharing inside information and private conversations between him and other players. He lost his position.

That you are protected here is simply because this community is not as vast as other's, this doesn't make this case any better. You can argue about it but the fact won't be changed. While your job won't be affected, your reputation sure will. And before you draw any conclusions, I'm on neither's side here.

Imagine I would do that to you. Let's just turn this situation around. You tell me something about you wanting to "Manipulate" someone to potentially get the truth of someone. Maybe this would have worked, maybe this certain someone is really hiding some secrets, maybe this certain someone does something no one knows about. Now I decide to tell this guy about it. You had a private conversation with me, additionally I would have been a moderator. But of course I did it 'Out of my duty'.

Besides that, you kinda protect someone who's also doing something shady. I wonder why. I mean spying on someone else's clan to get some inside informations and maybe cause some drama inside the clan iss - uhh - Let's say equally bad as manipulating someone to potentially get the truth of someone or something. I mean who knows, maybe Val would have never done that and he really just said that to lure you somewhere else, in which case he completely succeeded.

#edit: Speaking of trust, traf, players NEED to trust you, otherwise your status as moderator is obsolete really.

Man Sinner is working with Traf and Myorum. What we are even talking about:D They ask me grind proof for months to call it worthless proof and false accusations at the end. And then they make me look like fool about art copy troll and some derp mods making about even public jokes and when good friend hacker gets shamefull perma ban, someone unban her again and when that dont work out because there hapens to be one honest mod (can you imagine that?) some generous mod gives his accaunt to poor unfair banned hacker. It is one big joke it realy is...

[traf]

I would love to know what Swole is doing that is shady.

I’ve investigated everything given to me to the best of my ability, and as far as I can possibly tell he is clean. Things i’ve heard of: turn speed hacks (every time I checked, he was clean. And no, he didn’t know it was coming), art hacks (the mod team checked out his arts, nothing abnormal), art copying (we compared his arts with several people that had supposedly been copied from: nothing), and I even messaged the developers about art copying (they said it was impossible to write to the database, and as far as I can tell they are correct). Aimbot? He zooms out. I’ve been accused of using aimbot before too. Assorted pvp hacks? I’ve never been given anything I can actually follow up on, usually just “he survives stuff he shouldn’t”, which is wildly unhelpful.

I’m serious. I love catching people who hack, and yet no one can give me anything of substance on him. And yet “#SwoleH4X”, because repeating it a couple times makes it true.

I’ll respond to the rest of your post when I have time.

[traf]

Sheesh, can’t I write a post without someone jumping in line ._.

mt10, i’m a little confused as to what you think happened with cupa. All known accounts were permabanned, and the whole spy-1 thing ended up in TheSilent requesting his account be kept six feet under.

Also, if I recall correctly you actually didn’t give us much to work with.

[traf]

Brief note for nightsky:

Yeah, that’s kinda the point. This wasn’t about getting information, val’s stated purpose was to “outmanipulate” Swole. Is that not different?

Alright, let me explain it differently now since I finally have time to write up something longer and more detailed. What I am referring to is his shady activity with an alternate account in other clans. Is it for spying? A new start? No one knows, but knowing the reputation of him and NEMESIS I'm almost 100% certain it was not just for a new start and there is more background to it. It doesn't even need complex psychology to look through someone that way, all it needs is time, patience and basic knowledge. If you doubt that, question: Why would he create an alternate account, go with this one in an enemy clan that apparently doesn't like him (As far as I understand) and then come here with a post like that? If you ask me this is all a tiny bit suspicious.

Now, moving away from that case, you tell me that Val wanted to manipulate him. I would word it as "Outsmarting", knowing the suspect's psychology and responding to it accordingly. Maybe you did know this already but during interrogations questions like "We know where your family lives" are also lies, valid lies to make the suspect talk. So Val is correct about that and has the good right to perform such an action. Without protecting him, he was stabbed in the back pretty much. By you. Not going to blame anyone though. Anyways, this kind of thing could have been a good way to make him talk. Sure, you may not find anything suspicious on his account. Now let me ask you, how high is the probability that Swole has another alt we don't know of and is hacking on it to keep his main safe? How high is the probability that he's sharing knowledge about hacking to give others this advantage? How high is the probability that he's using some minor hacks that cannot be detected? Especially in a game where stats are randomly generated, how do you know that some godlike arts weren't somewhat created by himself? The developers may be right about not being able to copy or modify arts, who said there aren't workarounds to bypass the encryption? You can do some simple hacks by only using cheat engine, basically a program that only changes the client stats. Fiddler would be able to modify requests and change them in your favor. This way I was able to get infinite Gems in dragon city and social empire as well as in crazy penguin wars. Hacks that weren't possible with cheat engine or any other local file changing program. Just letting you know, the way of hacking is more vast than you think and there are hundreds of ways to do so.

Away from hacking, let's go to the trusting again. I have already told you that trust is a major part for your job. Without the trust you are not suited as a moderator. You can be chosen as one, if you turn out to be a good impact on the community or not is a different and more important story. What benefit does this game have from a moderator - a higher authority - who isn't trusted/liked a lot and causes people to leave? Just a wild guess but I think with this action you have made quite a few enemies. I don't want any confirmation but I would wildly guess so. Nonetheless, playing your cards of trust that freely can mean quite a few consequences for both the game and yourself, so here is a friendly reminder for you: Be rather quiet about things. You see where stuff like talking can lead to. Due to silence alone I was able to make people confess things they wouldn't have confessed if I would have talked and forced them to do so. Quite funny, isn't it? Doing nothing can often times bring more benefits than you might believe.

Manipulation is just another world for outsmarting someone or something or bypassing a system, but this would be more categorizes as an exploit. Manipulation is just a harsher word for being smarter than someone and using his own weapons against himself. Believe me, I know how "manipulation" works in psychology, the might of words can be beyond imagination sometimes. But that's not important right now.

I would recommend you to think about all of this first before you make any post. Sometimes reading something twice can greatly improve the understanding of what someone says.

But as to your next paragraph, keep in mind that our conversation didn’t have anything to do with actual mod business, or moderating.

It speaks to your character or lackthereof. You are a mod, act like one that's worth it. Just because the derps abused the community for years doesn't mean that's what a mod is. You get a wage for moderating so don't abuse the customers.

While I admit that this argument is clever, it’s simply nonsense.

Why...this isn't Faux News...you cant just yell "FAKE NEWS" and walk away. You acted in a duplicitious manner...traf the player is the same person as traf the moderator...you are held to a higher standard...quit creating middle school bs drama. Quit blaming Val...Val didn't start this...it started with booger trying to spy on nemesis.

I would love to know what Swole is doing that is shady.

Trying to infiltrate nemesis in order to; what; give us hugs and kisses? Quit playing the victim and saying booger is a victim. If you're gonna defend him, tell us the reason why he tried to manipulate val in the first place. This whataboutism is stupid...no one is buying it.

Believe it or not, I didn't actually have an endgame when I first started this venture. Traf can attest to the veracity of that statement.

As I was a part of your clan, you all treated me well, no matter the reason for doing so. As far as I can tell, you are all capable of being decent human beings and treating me accordingly, so I don't see why any conflict we have has to go on at all.

At this point, it's just petty. You're so invested in being right that you've created strawmen to burn down without addressing any real issues or providing salient arguments. You can have issues with whatever you want, but I'm done with it all. If you have problems, just go through the proper channels, and act civil. We don't have any reason to go back to mudslinging.

Believe it or not, I didn't actually have an endgame when I first started this venture. Traf can attest to the veracity of that statement.

A) I don't B) Only way that could be true is if you are traf

You're so invested in being right that you've created strawmen to burn down without addressing any real issues or providing salient arguments..

What are the strawmen and what are the real issues? Provide a salient argument.



What was the point of this thread? If all you wanted is to get us all kumbayahing, why did you include the supposedly private conversation?
You're a troll...flat out. Not even a good one. Sad thing is that traf fell for it too...his judgment has always been questionable, but ffs. If you want stupid made up drama, go watch honeybooboo, keep your crap out of here.

[Old Greg]

Poor traf, y'all are burning him at the stake because he shared something that both players acknowledge they already knew.

I'm saddened to see so many rail on traf, who over the past year has made incredible contributions to the game, namely ChatDaemon and soon DreadBot. Both enhance player gameplay. This is done at the cost of his own free time and at the sacrifce of his own gameplay.

Agree, totally fair to question whether or not a PM constitutes confidentiality. Personally, I don't think it does. Those who desire confidentiality should ask for it up front, prior to disclosing the tasty bits, and both parties should agree to said confidentiality. Otherwise, all is fair in love and war, in the world of clan shenanigans.

For the record, from what's posted in this thread, I don't see any violation of mod role. This thread simply shows one player talking to another player, who in turn passed on info to a third player.

btw, I moved this thread to off topic.

OK, this update includes bella's post below, I understand the player/mod conundrum, but the fact is that booger posted this drivel in order to cause drama and now val is being shamed for...i dont know...knowing that booger was trying to drum up drama? And traf either got played or wanted this drama to unfold.

Original post I sorta wanna retract

Poor traf, y'all are burning him at the stake because he shared something that both players acknowledge they already knew.

No, we are 'burning him' because he shared a private conversation, then gave the goahead for it to be released.

Agree, totally fair to question whether or not a PM constitutes confidentiality. Personally, I don't think it does. Those who desire confidentiality should ask for it up front, prior to disclosing the tasty bits, and both parties should agree to said confidentiality.

A PRIVATE message isn't supposed to be confidential? That's moronic. We need to fill out frakkin confidentiality agreement every time we talk to someone?

[Bellatrix]

Ok lets be frank here, everything you write to me, in private, local, clan or global I will use if I need too, private or as a mod, does not matter...

I understand that for many of you being a mod is a 100% job, you do not see us as normal players when we are on, we are supposed to always be moderators, even if there is nothing to moderate... That is not the case for us, we are players AND moderators, and I know this is fundamentally troublesome for some of you and I understand why, but that is how it is. Most of us abort our game play, might it be pve or pvp to help players or to moderate, but at some point we want to enjoy this game too and want to be players in a clan and mess around and have fun, talk shit with our friends. As long as you can separate those two roles I see no problem with it and I don't see the issue here with what has been posted...

Regarding the whole trust issue, yes, trust for moderators is absent, we are doing everything we can to make sure we will regain that trust but it will take time and we are ready to let it build. Biggest change to how we function as a mod team has been to change communication platform to one that allows us to be more flexible, and quicker to react to things, we have also gone much further in how we react and act on things as moderators to make it united for us a as a group. But since some of us ar more active and some are less there will always be small differences, and we will work on keeping them small.

@GREG: What does the P in PM stand for?

DIRECT QUOTE from me, in my Pm to Traf, as posted by boogerito in his first post,

"obviously, don't tell anyone. And don't post it in your stupid chat logger."

Then...

"Now that i think of it, i don't even know why i told you."

As several players can attest, i stated to them outright that if Steroids intentions seemed genuine, i'd be happy to have him stay in the clan. His own interactions with me should reinforce that point, and i think they have.

I have a long track record of giving people a chance to prove themselves that others may not think deserve one. A very recent example being zZoNe. Even when it has caused some internal clan drama from a few members of NEMESIS thinking i was making a mistake to give certain players the benefit of the doubt.

To me, zZoNe proved that he was loyal to the clan and trustworthy. Unfortunately, circumstances beyond my control contributed to sabotage his stay here in the clan. I'd take him back tomorrow if he wanted to come back though.

If a player is an outstanding player and i have no proof they hack or cheat, it is, in my opinion, in my interests, the clan's interests, and ultimately- the game's interests to give them a chance.

Afterall, Nemesis' declared purpose is the pew-pew-pew in game destruction of nuisance clans and players.

Even if they leave later, both they and nemesis are almost always enriched by the interaction. Most of the best players in the game have come up through nemesis. Including many in the depraved, or ex depraved- and almost all of clan AEGIS.

Considering the hours and hours i've put forward to enriching the community, it is rather painful to know that traf, a player i once considered a good friend, is completely untrustworthy.

Of course finding that out was the ultimate goal of sending that PM to traf to begin with. So- once again, mission successful.

As far as hacking, i have zero evidence that steroid (or anyone else for that matter) hacks in AF. Anyone i DID have evidence of hacking against, i have had banned....sometimes even when faced with extremely stiff resistance from some of our crack moderator staff.

The most recent example being Myorum telling me that i was FLAT OUT WRONG that Cupa was using TheSilent's account, or had access to his account. Well, one of us was flat out wrong....

In any case, if Tren wants to stay, he is welcome to-- as long as he is loyal to the clan and plays within the rules (which so far as i know, he does), that's all that matters to me.

Hail NEMESIS.

Val, not to throw gas on the fire, but everyone here knows that if someone were to tell you something via PM that was the least bit useful to you, we'd find screenie plastered all over the forum and global, regardless of if the person asked you to keep it secret. So why should other players be held to higher standards when you can't even follow what you preach?

So don't hate on traf, he was only proving his point, it's your own fault you told him.

As a psychology major, what swole is doing is actually quite interesting. As he said, they treated him fairly and without judgement. While it may partly may have been Val trying to use him, not every member had an alternative motive. Some players may have taken the chance to get to know swole outside of his "stomp everyone" main account.

Also, a sociology concept, NEMESIS members are taught to hate Depraved and anyone who stands against them. The top few teach the rest how and what to feel about certain things. These are akin to religions/cults, and McPwny stating that he wasn't ok with having Swoles alt in the clan shows that.

Hopefully I've added to this conversation and not just derailed it further.

You'd have to look pretty far to find any screen shots i posted on forums...given that i don't generally post on forums, and when i do share screen shots with mods, it's directly to them in game, and not on forums.

And i think you would be absolutely stunned at the things i don't share with mods, that i could. I've also gone to bat for people....like you....when a mod told me straight up he was going to ban you.

If you are a psychology major, btw, that explains SO MUCH about you and your behavior.

I don't recall ever telling any new recruit to nemesis "Depraved bad, must hate."

I think you can ask Steroid that yourself...since he just joined a few weeks ago. People who become hated become so because of their own actions.

Remember SPECTRE? Within 4 weeks SPECTRE became the most despised player in the game because that persona killed literally everyone in sight for absolutely no reason, and without saying a word.

People are 'villians', or 'heroes', based on how they behave in game. Some of us are a little of both. And what good would either be, without the other?

As far as manipulation and shady underhanded actions, you, my friend, are in a league of your own. The fact that you actually think Traf trusts you in even the slightest bit whatsoever is proof that he is not the only naive poster on this thread.

[TheStarved]

This is hard to follow with everyone using different names for the same people.

Please be more concise so that I can properly enjoy the drama.

Starved