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Wrap-up of the bans related to the actions of Ardacraft

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Finrod_Amandil

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Between August 31st and approx. October 11th MCME and it's members have been the target of a multitude of attacks, executed by members and associates of the community of Ardacraft. This post lays out the reasoning of the bans spoken within this period to members and associates of Ardacraft and the further consequences which will be drawn from this situation.

The banned people are divided into two groups, which are:

Group 1: Core members of the "m3m3team" during this period who have been most active and have committed, and contributed to, most of the evidently malevolent attacks against MCME and members of MCME. These persons are subjected to a permanent ban from the entire MCME Network, except these Forums. Given the amount and clarity of the gathered evidence (see below) these bans are not negotiable. Any messages sent to any member of MCME or posts made on any forum or other communication channel regarding these bans are treated as spam and may initiate the further procedures mentioned below.

This first group encompasses the following persons:

Group 2: Secondary members of the "m3m3team" which have been partially active but less often or less intensely, as well as other persons that have supported the actions of the "m3m3team". The persons of this group are put under a temporary and afterwards appealable ban. The duration of the temporary ban is 3 months, starting on the date this post is published. After that period the ban may be appealed by making a post in the "Ban Appeals" forums.

The second group consists of:
For persons that have been banned prior to August 31st, or who were banned for reasons that were not related to Ardacraft the judgement is as communicated by the responsible Enforcer. In case you were not informed about your ban you can message any Enforcer through a Forum message.


The evidence gathered includes all the forum threads, videos, Discord posts and personal messages made by the persons of either of the above groups with evidently malevolent intentions. Additionally the evidence includes screenshots of the entire Discord channel used by the "m3m3team" to plan their attacks, as well as downloaded versions of all google documents, which were used to plan the videos and other sorts of actions against MCME and its members. This evidence has been gathered by myself. In total the amount of evidence gathered counts more than 1000 files, most of which stem from the "m3m3team" channel. While those may not directly be applicably for bans issued under MCME's ToS they do show the persons that were responsible for the content shared on the MCME Network, as well as the intentions of these members.

The evidence gathered from the "m3m3team" channel revealed the following core facts:
  • The "m3m3team" was, as by the word of its leader, officially collaborating with Ardacraft and vice versa.
  • The overall plan of the "m3m3team" and Ardacraft was to destroy MCME by all means, which includes constantly luring members of MCME away to Ardacraft, not for the benefit of the respective members, but in order to weaken MCME, and furthermore trying to lead me to a mental breakdown or worse by constant defamation and other personal attacks.

The actions committed during this period differ from previous waves of 'drama':
  • The actions were wholly unprovoked and were not initiated by a newly spoken and debatable ban or similar.
  • The wave of attacks was more prolonged and more intense than ever before.

Due to these reasons, and the surreal grade of malice within that "m3m3team" channel, the consequences that are drawn beside the bans listed above are more drastic as well:
[ERROR]I, Finrod_Amandil, who has been the target of many personal attacks, WILL hand in the offences committed within this period to the police and I will press charges against the people listed under "Group 1" above as well as against the entirety of Ardacraft for a multitude of offences which are liable to prosecution, IF the members of "Group 1" create or support ANY kind of further provocation against me, against MCME or against other members of MCME, or if ANY member of Ardacraft or the "m3m3team" commits any further provocation in the name of Ardacraft or the "m3m3team" regardless of whether the leader(s) of either group acknowledge or decline it, regardless of whether this provocation itself is a criminal offence or not and regardless on whether the provocation is committed in- or outside the MCME Network.[/ERROR]
This is the first and only warning, and it's a generous offer given how close I was (and still am) to put these actions not up against any ToS, but real-life law. If the past week would not have been this quiet, this warning would not have been spoken anymore beforehand. The offences in question include but may not be limited to: cyber bullying, stalking, defamation, instigation to suicide, coercion, and threatening, many of which are criminal offences in most developed countries.

It is up to Ardacraft's administration, resp. its leader @Fornad to inform those members of Ardacraft that are not checking up on these forums about this. All I will do is contacting Fornad through the Ardacraft forums.
 
I do appreciate that my ban was not more severe, as I've since had a feeling of regret for my actions on the server. That being said, this is quite literally the most stupidly ineffective way to coerce your critics into silence. You know there's very little laws that can actually have an effect on those you've threatened with legal action? The only one who has any shot of being prosecuted is Eaglz, and he's a minor,17, and won't be tried under his law, which is a measure put in place to protect citizens of New Zealand from excessive online bullying from other citizens of New Zealand. Any law that the countries of the people you've listed are only used in severe cases that have led to loss of life or severe endangerment. Example being, "We know where you live and if you return home, I'll be there with my friends if you show your face." Do you actually consider trolling to be a serious offense? Most of your evidence comes from a private chat room where people openly criticised you, and not directly to your face, constituting no actual threat. You even admitted to me that the jokes and slander had no personal mentaly damaging effect on you. So what's your case? Eaglz putting your name and in game character's face in a poorly edited video? A meme means that your local police are going to use embassies and international channels to call NZ police to track down his address and hold him accountable for hurting your feelings online? You're an adult, he's a child. Act like there's an honest difference between the two of you and move on. If anything, no one is going to take your threats seriously and this is a rallying point for new meme material. The fact that I (was) demoted on AC and Fornad actively insisted that we stop all association with m3m3team and leave you all alone should have been enough, but you have to go and make this response after nearly 2 weeks of silence on our part? You were going to be absolutely fine until now. Now you should expect negative push back and criticism.
 
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While I'm reluctant to respond and risk prolonging the conflict, I do feel the need to touch on one issue. First off, thank you @HeartseekerDK for a respectful and reasoned reply. If more people on both sides would respond in this way I feel the situation would be better for it. Regarding your statement, I agree with you that legal action does seem a bit excessive, but it is Finrod's right to make that decision. Now I haven't seen the vast majority of the communication between the m3m3team and Finrod, but one statement of his does standout to me: "instigation to suicide". I'm all for everyone's right to poke a little fun at each other, but there is line that must be drawn. When the mocking turns to the subjects of race, creed, orientation, or disabilities then the line has been crossed in my opinion. Encouraging suicide is not something to be done, even in jest. Suicide is a serious issue and must be treated as such. Again, I have not seen the evidence, but if instigation to suicide was included in the messages, then that is a serious matter. There is a right and wrong way to express disagreements and I hope that everyone can know the difference. This message applies to members of both communities.
 
Yeah, I'm not intimately aware of every circumstance, as my role was often just editing and photoshopping character faces go things likened to the Star Wars memes, I believe the only one of any note that I was aware of was Beathaven taking a cartoon rope and putting, "Finrod out" as a response to his thread where he stated that. Initially thought it was funny, but unlike ArdaCraft where we hear with each other all the time in that level, I understand time and place. It's not acceptable here at all.
 
I dont think its even important whether or not it is a strong case or if the actions where legal or illegal. What matters is that this shit has gotten WAY out of hand. For both communities: If someone is prepared to take legal actions against someone, it means we have clearly crossed a line here. And to some it may have only have been a joke all along, Shoutout to my homies at AC. Or whether or not it is because some old grudge you have against MCME, Shoutout to my homies at m3m3team. This is atleast for some members no longer funny, if they start threatning with legal issues. which indicated that its time to stop. Cause I dont know about other people, but personally im getting fucking sick of constant drama.

We are all nerds trying to have a fun time playing minecraft and building middle-earth. Fucking hell this is giving me flashbacks on elemantary school drama.

So to those thinking this is stil a joke: NEWS FLASH, if someone is prepared to go to the authorities over fucking Minecraft. its no longer a joke.

So can we please just go back to doing our own things, on our own servers.
Gosh...


Yours truelly

-David
 
So to those thinking this is stil a joke: NEWS FLASH, if someone is prepared to go to the authorities over fucking Minecraft. its no longer a joke.

Actually it makes it into a much bigger joke. Calling the cops over memes lmao give us a fuckin break m8

Oh and too bad you and tyr are banned and can't spy on us for finny anymore
 
Actually it makes it into a much bigger joke. Calling the cops over memes lmao give us a fuckin break m8

Oh and too bad you and tyr are banned and can't spy on us for finny anymore

I have so little clue about this drama I really should not comment, but I just want to anyways. Because when m3m3s turn into instigation to suicide, or it affects someone's life in a way that somehow hurts him, its not up to you to decide that the m3m3s are just silly memes, it is actually up to whom they are against. If you create a meme against someone, it doesnt matter how funny you think it is, when the one the meme is about clearly does think its funny at all. Laugh with, not off people. I have just seen stupid and childish memes from the m3m3team, which I just think are annoying, but I know Fin wouldnt be this upset about silly memes.
At first, I thought this drama was just too hilarious, because people actually could get this dramatic about a silly computergame, but I think it has gotten too far now.
 
I dont think its even important whether or not it is a strong case or if the actions where legal or illegal. What matters is that this shit has gotten WAY out of hand. For both communities: If someone is prepared to take legal actions against someone, it means we have clearly crossed a line here. And to some it may have only have been a joke all along, Shoutout to my homies at AC. Or whether or not it is because some old grudge you have against MCME, Shoutout to my homies at m3m3team. This is atleast for some members no longer funny, if they start threatning with legal issues. which indicated that its time to stop. Cause I dont know about other people, but personally im getting fucking sick of constant drama.

We are all nerds trying to have a fun time playing minecraft and building middle-earth. Fucking hell this is giving me flashbacks on elemantary school drama.

So to those thinking this is stil a joke: NEWS FLASH, if someone is prepared to go to the authorities over fucking Minecraft. its no longer a joke.

So can we please just go back to doing our own things, on our own servers.
Gosh...


Yours truelly

-David
Going to a police first off, on the other side of world for someone like these members of AC is a fuckin hilarious insult. You're going to go. To a police station. Because you got your feelings hurt. Truthfully all I can say is, that if you're older than 18 and you're offended by a meme against you, go and cry to your mom about it. Because the police or whatever authorities aren't going to care two shits about some random individual on the other side of the planet. Just think about how idiotic it is too say. Well. Well. These guys are making fun of me on a game. I'm going to get the police. The police have better things to do than deal with a 23 year old child. Please actually move out of your parents house already and grow a pair.
 
Can we all take a moment to step back and appreciate that people are using adult words on the MCME forums and staff are editing out the words or censoring them.

What a time to be alive :D

I'll crawl back into my cave now, toodles.
 
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