All you need to know about Pirate-Community

[Greengoop]

I don’t use discord, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to after this conversation. And sorry Hunch, I’ll try to remain respectful.

[EdgyRabbid]

Those dickheads don’t want to talk to you anymore? Sounds like you dodged a huge bullet hoodlumsworld!

Guys, please refrain yourselves from insulting anyone, however wrong they might be. This will be my final warning!

This is something I can respect. Even when they’re being mean to you and your website you still stay civil.

[RayCarrot]

It makes me really sad to see people speak about the server in this way. It doesn't represent how I or other people have experienced it. There are 2 people out of several hundred who have expressed strong negative views on this site and it's very rarely they even bring it up. Like was said, I did have to try and shut down a debate that was going nowhere today, which was spawned by the post Hunch made. But trying to make it out like this is a regular thing that happens and represents the server is very unfair. There are countless discussions about all sorts of other things, most of which are positive.

Edge, it saddens me that this is what you would think and say about the place. I know when you were there that you said you felt uncomfortable by certain negative discussions, such as when some people spoke negatively about Ubisoft after news articles about the trials, or negative talk about the gaming industry as a whole, and you mentioned being very sensitive to those things. From what I could tell everyone you interacted with seemed to be really understanding of that sensitivity and try to help as best they could. But if someone there did make you uncomfortable then I'm really sorry as that's not at all what I want and I wish one of us admins could have been notified about it. We recently had to ban someone from there who had been making a lot of people uncomfortable for a while, and it's very important for us that people feel safe and comfortable in this place. I know I and several others were really sad when you left the server.

It's really sad that there's so much negativity talked about different places of the community and things being taken out of context. We may disagree with how certain things have been handled, and there have been issues in the past. Relations between people in large communities is also always hard to manage, but we should all realize that a couple of people do not represent an entire community. I think we should try and keep the places we have now as positive and welcoming as we can. The past few years have been free of any major drama or incidents and I really hope it can keep that way and we can move on from what has been.

[hoodlumsworld]

Those dickheads don’t want to talk to you anymore? Sounds like you dodged a huge bullet hoodlumsworld!

It was just one person and I refuse to throw insults at them, but this conversation was going nowhere so it is probably for the best.

I think I can agree with what RayCarrot wrote about the server overall. Almost everyone is chill and friendly. Although I must say that there has been a recent spike in "RPC hate" comments being made out of nowhere and that has been noticed by a few of us. I was hurt and offended too by that comment that assumed bad faith on my part. I still view my experience as very positive overall but there is no place for disrespect, even if it's only from 2 people out of several hundred.

Guys, please refrain yourselves from insulting anyone, however wrong they might be. This will be my final warning!

This is something I can respect. Even when they’re being mean to you and your website you still stay civil.

THIS! It is all about respect!!

[Greengoop]

It certainly confuses me as well. I didn’t realise RaymanPC had such a bad rep in the community until recently, nor did I think anyone outside of this circle had heard of it at all.

[hoodlumsworld]

I don't think 2 people make a bad rep, it's just that it wouldn't stop coming up lately.

[Greengoop]

Those people seem quite prominent if this many people have seen them though, why couldn’t they be the quiet, rare members?

[EdgyRabbid]

I don’t know. I’m just glad I left.

As for RayCarrot, I’m glad your respond was civil and respectful. Most people would’ve jumped to defend themselves instead.

[RayCarrot]

Can we please stop speaking ill of other people? This debate started because some people felt people were speaking unfairly about RPC, so doing the same back to others doesn't seem very fair.

I have been going through some chat logs and while there is generally very few mentions of RPC I do agree that the past few months there have been a few more negative comments than before (once again by the same users). We can try and be more strict about this in the moderating team as needless bashing or insults to other places is not nice. If someone in said server find certain posts uncomfortable or in bad taste then the best is to come to one of the admins there to discuss it. That's the only way for it to be resolved. Complaining about it in other places will just cause more animosity/distrust in the community, which I hope none of us here wants.

[EdgyRabbid]

Yeah. I will stop talking it about here, as I have said my statement. I am at peace.

[Steo]

I have to say I am saddened by both how this news by Hunch has been taken by some, and how some people here took so quickly to just bashing a couple of users and even their entire Discord server as a result. This is called fighting fire with fire, there is nothing going to be achieved by doing so. There are a lot of really nice people in the server in question. Some people still have a fairly negative outlook on RPC as a whole due to these past actions, and it has now been stated that certain things happened in 2020 that went unmentioned in the post (I tried to explain this part in their Discord server myself prior to this, so it seems this is why it wasn't asked about). However, some of the users there also use RPC and even RayWiki quite frequently while not having a bad thing to say. Some even give some positive notes about the place.

I just really would like if we could leave it out when it comes to prodding others, you're fine with stating you have a different experience with this place and maybe don't agree with others, but it's best not to start sending out insults, if anything that's going to achieve the opposite, and just make this place look worse if that's the type of retaliation people will get. I hope some day, we can all be past community wars / dramas. The entire point of Hunch's post was to try get everyone on the same page, not start a war.

[EdgyRabbid]

I agree with Steo here. And I apologize for how I spoke of the server.

This situation made me realize that I need to improve as a person, and actually think before I speak. I apologize to everyone that I might’ve hurt.

[DaveRattlehead]

Thanks for the explanation Hunch, it is really horrendous that such things happened and I'm glad that those people are gone.

Anyway, I'm also made increasingly uncomfortable by the same people Edge mentioned. Someone there complained that the statement did not address the 2020 "Сым incident" so I pointed out that I asked specifically about the earlier heinous posts. Then they said the statement was made to look like nothing wrong happened after 2019 so I pointed out that it's not what it says. And then it started going in circles with them stating that the statement did not go over the other problems I did not ask about and that the 2020 incident was a case of heinous posts too, even though they were deleted immediately as I witnessed at the time. They concluded by denying this and saying that they would not talk to me any more because they were starting to doubt if I'm acting in good faith.

I really tried to understand that person's point of view and honestly and objectively compare it with the other side's but they would just mix up various incidents and never provide any proof and now this disrespectful answer? I think I'm starting to understand what's going on here. The server admin told people to stop discussing this and they're still ranting about this alone right now. The place overall is nice and friendly but those people reflect very poorly on it and really ruin the atmosphere sometimes.

As it happens here, it happens everywhere in real life. In my opinion, and without having been present those years, I think Hunch's post is pretty clear and clearly explains how fucked up it was. I'm not one to judge whether it could have been done better or not, I wasn't part of the staff of this forum nor a user, but people also have to understand that it's harder to make good decisions in environments like that than in situations where the biggest concern is, for example, a single person spamming. That said, I think this is an example that, no matter what explanations are given, people who want to criticize something will always find some excuse. That's life I guess.

Personally, I haven't come across many negative comments about RPC (though admittedly I'm not very active on Discord or other Rayman communities either), but since I made this account in 2023 I find that there are very few negative things that can be said, and none of them are about their community or their people. Just as it is unfair for a Discord server to be criticized for derogatory comments towards this forum, I think it is unfair for this forum to be criticized for deeds done by people who are no longer here and who do not represent the current community. I have no qualms in saying that RPC is one of the best online communities I've seen, and I insist, I consider it quite unfair that the forum is so criticized for such a delicate situation. I am absolutely sure that any person who had to take charge of this would have made, if not the same, many more mistakes.

[RibShark]

As someone who was very open about criticising RPC at the time when everything went down (and I still do have my issues with how certain things were done back then), I do have to say that things are much better here now and Hunch and the rest of the moderation team seem to be doing a good job at keeping things peaceful.

As you can probably tell from reading Hunch's post, things did get *very* bad (and into some *very* illegal territory) and even life-threatening at certain points. When people get harassed to that extent, it can leave some lasting trauma, so I can totally understand why some people may retain a very negative view of the site despite the improvements. It's like if you had an abusive family member who got therapy and was now better, a lot of people would still be uncomfortable seeing them still. That's not to say it's an excuse for insulting the site or its staff, but if someone had that bad experience they probably wouldn't want to return to even see if things had change, so their experience with the site remains as this horrible thing, so when the topic comes up, that is what they have to say about it. On the contrary users who joined after all the bad things had stopped have had a great time here and so naturally want to defend the site when they here criticisms.

After everything that happened even I am not active here nearly as much as I used to be, since I still feel some level of discomfort even though things are better now.

I guess what I'm saying here is the events have left a lasting impact with some strong feelings, and that it's important we understand that.

[Hunchman801]

Yeah, trauma is a serious thing and I can totally appreciate that. I don't think anybody here has any issues with someone avoiding the place if it may bring up bad memories that affect their mental health. But then that's no probably no good reason for those same people to jump on every occasion that someone mentions the site and post the same gratuitous, defamatory comments each time.

As for the way things were managed back then, I acknowledged in my statement that mistakes were made and I take full responsibility for those. It's just that sometimes, people seem to forget that we're just a bunch of passionate volunteers with our own private lives and that the gravity of the situation was such that the decisions we had to make were not as easy as some of the criticism makes it sound. We went through some tough shit, but we always acted in good faith, and in the end we managed to eliminate the problem.

Our sole focus is the betterment of the community, and we count on everyone's constructive criticism to help us achieve that.

[Greengoop]

It must’ve felt tough having people unstoppably making the community miserable on one end, and people constantly calling you and your team terrible moderators for not dealing with them on the other. I think you handled it amazingly considering the amount of pressure put on your back coming from all directors, there’s no way I could’ve dealt with it that well.

[DaveRattlehead]

I think Hunch's post summarizes everything pretty well, but there are a few things I'd like to point out regarding Rib's post.

First, the analogy comparing a community to an abusive family member is deeply flawed. A community is defined by the people in it, and when those people change, the community changes. That's exactly what has happened with RPC. Equating the forum itself to an abuser not only misrepresents the situation, but unfairly shifts blame from those who actually caused the harm to the space (including the staff those years), which I insist, was a minority compared to the rest of the people, and it's a shame that people had to leave the forum just because the situation got out of control.

Second, yes, people are entitled to their memories and discomfort, but as Hunch said, that doesn't give anyone license to repeatedly project a negative image of a space that has clearly moved forward, especially when they haven't engaged with it in years. Respecting trauma also means knowing when it's no longer about healing, but about dragging others down. On a personal level, I find it a real shame that people I may interact with in the future have a bad view of me just because outsiders have decided to spew venom. I always defend (and will always defend) that people make use of their critical thinking, that they draw their own conclusions and judge based on what they think, not based on other people's words. Just as it applies to a person, it also applies to a forum/server.

It's totally understandable and respectable that people may not like this forum. It's clear that platforms like Discord have been gaining ground and are much more modern. We are very happy to read that you consider that the new staff is doing a good job, that means that we are doing things right. I just hope that any criticism moving forward can stay constructive and focused on recent matters. There is little point in preventing people from joining the forum and enjoy just because of things/errors that were committed 5 or more years ago and to which we can provide little solution now but to ask for forgiveness.

And finally, I think that if someone has a real problem with a person or with a forum, the most appropriate thing to do is to contact the administrator or the staff of the site to solve the problem that may exist. Seriously, I find it quite sad and a real shame that the community can be divided by comments like this. Precisely the Rayman community is not as strong as other videogames, and the worst thing we can do is to start senseless wars against other communities. Let's have peace, please

[Steo]

Regarding trauma, I understand the point Rib was trying to make. It's totally valid if someone is feeling traumatised and is highly uncomfortable, PTSD is even a thing. I can respect if someone doesn't want to be around due to reasons like this. If I seen a message along the lines of "I don't feel comfortable visiting there after all those things happened back then", that would be completely fair. I know that one user who mentioned RPC negatively is just concerned in this type of way, so I think we can pretty much accept this.

The other case however, is more about wanting all of the facts spelled out, and while I get that people have a right to know what happened, I don't think it's managing to solve anything. I briefly got into the 2020 situation on the Discord server a few days back, explaining how the situation started on Discord and more or less leaked into RPC, and that I didn't handle that situation well in general (I did a lot of stupid things back then). I think this is why hoodlumsworld didn't really go into asking about 2020 in specific, as it seems they felt I already explained that part.

There are new moderators here who were never even around when those things happened. It was mentioned by Hunch that the ones were here take responsibility for how things were handled. The newer moderators however, will likely feel uncomfortable when things come up in negative light, and possibly even somewhat hurt / insulted since they are just trying to help in their free time. Even the ones who were there will still experience those same feelings to some extent, it's not something that's nice to think about.

Overall, I think a lot of people don't want to think about those things anymore and would prefer to move forward. The community is different than it was back then, but if anyone is uncomfortable and would rather steer clear for their own well being / mental health, then that's totally understandable. I think the main thing is to be respectful, same applies to our members when it comes to other communities too.

[hoodlumsworld]

That said, I think this is an example that, no matter what explanations are given, people who want to criticize something will always find some excuse. That's life I guess.

I felt the same way reading some of their comments. The conversation became a loop. One person kept bringing up the 2020 Сым incident. When Steo clarified the situation, the person shifted their complaint to the site harboring bad people before that. After Hunch disproved that, they went right back to citing the 2020 incident as their issue, not the hacker group they claimed RPC harbored, ignoring all the information that had been provided.

I want to be clear: I'm not criticizing or making fun of this person. I sympathize with any trauma they have, but it's important to recognize that a productive discussion is impossible.

[Hunchman801]

I felt the same way reading some of their comments. The conversation became a loop. One person kept bringing up the 2020 Сым incident. When Steo clarified the situation, the person shifted their complaint to the site harboring bad people before that. After Hunch disproved that, they went right back to citing the 2020 incident as their issue, not the hacker group they claimed RPC harbored, ignoring all the information that had been provided.

I want to be clear: I'm not criticizing or making fun of this person. I sympathize with any trauma they have, but it's important to recognize that a productive discussion is impossible.

Indeed, I reached out to some of them when I first caught wind of those comments, but they completely ignored me. If they are unwilling to engage in any sort of conversation about this because remembering it makes them feel bad, that's fine. But then don't seize every opportunity that RPC gets mentioned to speak negatively of it with no intention of understanding the situation better and challenging your prejudice.

To give you an idea of how petty this can get, one of the two people involved is the same person who publicly belittled PluM's work when he reverse-engineered the Hall of Fame algorithm to reimplement it on RPC, falsely claiming that it had been done already when only the code generation part was available at the time. Not that anyone pretended it to be the scientific discovery of the year, but it took PluM some time and we were just happy to bring it back to our users after Ubi shut down their endpoint years ago.

Not that they stopped there. To prove whatever point they had in mind, they went on to register a multitude of accounts and spam the Hall of Fame with fake scores. Of course, a leaderboard system that relies solely on a single generated code is deeply flawed. But why ruin the fun for those who enjoy it? What is there to achieve in such behavior?

By now the pattern of false statements and unsolicited attacks is probably quite obvious already. But despite all that, I hold no grudges. My door is always open, should one day the will of building a united community become stronger than that of dividing it.