This whole sequence of events has been a road of tough decisions and bad feelings. After taking a bit of flack for it last night when answering statuses and forum posts, I would just like to express a few things in addition to that which Todd has already said. I have no issues at all with their site and wish them the best of luck becuase, as Todd says, many of the members there are former friends who I have worked with and respected for a long time. My number one priority is to this site and to its members and goals. We are all here to enjoy our hobby and share our creativity which in turn inspires others. That is what it should all be about and the fact this has happened and detracts from those goals is lamebtable.

After speaking with members who have been approached and seeing how it made them feel, that sort of unease and feeling like a pawn in a game of chess, we all knew we had to stop that from happening. Truth be told there are very few ways in which one can stop that from happening without escalating the issue into a bigger drama. However, it must be understood that the only reason I have shut down statuses and removed forum posts on this subject is simply to try and put the goals of the site and the feelings of the membership first, not to cover up some sort of conspiracy. There is no conspiracy, only a desire to see this site we have all put so much of ourselves into propser and flourish in doing what it does best; which is showcasing member enthusiasm, inspiration and creativity.

Anything which detracts from that is, in my view, in direct opposition to our primary purpose for being here. I am very much a private person and believe all issues should be dealt with with dignity and mutual respect, not in drawing lines in the sand and trying to ignite civil wars over a hobby. However I also understand the need to give feelings a voice and occasionally I too go all Pelinal and start crusading about issues I am passionate about. With that understanding and level of empathy, much of this has been difficut to deal with. So on that note I would like to express my appreciation to the hosts, admins and members who have supported me/us and understod the position we are in and the reasons for our decisions. That is teamwork right there and is very much appreciated.

I am glad the bannings are being addressed, guys, but I really expect a more timely announcement next time. I mean Lizard Wizard was the one to tell us that Tae and Cait were banned, not any of the admins or hosts. So either you guys just didn't think it was necessary to fill us in in a timely manner (to which I point to the Ben C shitstorm for why that's wrong) or you guys were being deliberately tight-lipped about it (which I equate to lying by ommission). I can understand the former, even if I would really, really encourage change in that mindset. But the latter is very bad, guys. I do not like being lied to.

I also don't buy into the 'delaying because we wanted to get our facts straight' excuse. That implies you guys were discussing damage control and no offense but I find that hard to believe simply from what I've seen and, more importantly, what I haven't seen. Withholding announcements like this are not good. I'm not even talking from some kind of moral standpoint. It's just a bad idea in general because it gives  people more time to, as Lissette said, "sit there and have people imply fascism and other things." The delayed response from the admins and hosts and the negative response from choice members are, in my view, directly correlative. Obviously some members would've reacted poorly no matter what, but the delayed response made it worse.

Just for the record, there's nothing in there about causing harm to anyone. Nor is there anything in that Google doc or in the PM from the member who was involved that indicates "poaching" members was a tactic that was employed or even considered. There is a fundamental difference between poaching and recruiting. Not once in there do they talk about "stealing" from the site, nor convincing anyone to stop using the Vault. They only talk about using the Vault to find new members to join their site. Never about asking anyone to choose between the two. Indeed, they make it clear they DON'T want to give the impression that this site is competitive/hostile. The admins of the Vault have grossly misinterpreted the intent of these former hosts (who, with one exception, stepped down of their own volition after years of dedicated service to this site, btw). Which is understandable, given that the information was fed to them by the most notorious troll this site has ever seen....

Granted, I was not involved in whatever recruitment they used, so I could be way off-base here and perhaps they did indeed try to actually convince members to stop using the Vault ... But that Google doc and PM don't indicate as much.

You guys can feel free to make of this what you will, but for the record, I don't think the site staff are giving a fair, accurate, or complete summation of this situation. (Of course they aren't, as it would make them look worse and make the ex-hosts who created the new site more sympathetic/understandable.) To be fair, depending on who you ask, a complete/accurate/impartial summation might take days to write.... In any case, it really tears me up that they keep talking about not letting this derail the community with one hand, while using it to alienate the community against any dissent with the other. To say that you have no issue with the community visiting this new site is a clear lie, given that you have added it to the spam filter. I haven't seen, like, mass public campaigns about it, just a couple of statuses talking about it as a result of people asking about the bannings.

I've poured years of blood, sweat, and tears into this site. I've seen many people come and go, I've made many friends and I feel I left an enduring mark here. So did many others who are now long gone. It's really a shame to see the site/community in its current state. The drama and salt have just been piling on for ages -- really since the Ben C incident, other than a few months of "calm after the storm" there. It feels to me like there have been a lot of scapegoats since then ... but with all due respect, I think it's time we consider that the issue is systemic...

I'm not here to advocate anyone leave this site or join any other site or anything like that. On the contrary, I'm here to do what I've been doing for a long time now: to propose the "hard truths", as it were, that others may be too stubborn, frightened, or egotistical to consider. Because I want what is best for the good of the community. I am concerned that this situation is just one link in a chain of strife that has been going on for some time now, and, to me, is likely to continue with or without the likes of Curse, Tae, et al. And eventually my fear is that it will someday be too much. I do not want to see that happen to a place I have loved so much for so long. I can't imagine any of you do.

I'm sorry if anything I've said in this message is too blunt or otherwise not in keeping with the message the staff team is trying to push, but I feel the community deserves something a bit less PR-ified and a bit more frank. Delete this if you will, but I think it needs to be said.

There is no conspiracy, only a desire to see this site we have all put so much of ourselves into propser and flourish in doing what it does best; which is showcasing member enthusiasm, inspiration and creativity.

I certainly agree with this. My issue is that I feel you guys are sort of implying that now that Curse and Tae are gone, there shouldn't be any drama around here any more. That's super naive, and I think you know it too. Curse and Tae grew disgruntled due to valid concerns which were largely ignored when voiced, and their frustrations over this increased exponentially and were unfortunately in the end problematic and inappropriate. But it doesn't make their initial concerns any less legitimate, yet I feel they've been neatly brushed under the rug... Not that this is the place to talk about that stuff, but I think it bears noting.

When I stepped down from hosting, it was my plan to go the way of Feeney or Henson -- stay out of the site politics, and keep to the simple stuff. But I guess that just isn't in my nature. I'm sorry if this ruffles any feathers or gets me into trouble, but I can't in good conscience keep silent on this, given that I have more knowledge on the subject than nearly anyone else here.

EDIT: Rephrased a few things to clarify my meaning a bit, as it might not have been wholly clear at places.

Given my position on both the Tamriel Vault and ************ (side note: as Todd noted above, the name of the new site has been added to the Vault’s filter; if that last bit appears as a series of *’s for you, that’s the reason why) combined with the fact that all of this is now very much in the public, I would like to make a few things clear.

For starters, as I imagine some of you may have already guessed, the quote that Todd posted above came from me. I appreciate that the admins are willing to keep me anonymous, but I’m going to own up to this one. However, now that I’ve gotten the chance to read this post, I believe there may have been some miscommunication between myself and Todd. All that I meant by that quote was that I was against the idea of member poaching; it was not meant to be taken as confirmation that there was in fact member poaching going on. Due to a combination of work, a Blind Guardian concert, and catching up on sleep I was away from my computer most of the time that this whole issue and while I was mostly aware of what was going on, something I wasn’t clear on was whether or not what was going on actually constituted member poaching so at the time I just had to take Todd’s word for it. Regardless, I apologize for any trouble the miscommunication might have caused.

This does, however bring up another point that I’d like to address, and that is what exactly constitutes member poaching. If you ask me, member poaching in this context would consist of a ************ member trying to convince a Vault member to leave the Vault and go to ************ instead, or alternatively, a Vault member trying to convince a ************ member to leave ************ and go to the Vault instead. Simply convincing a Vault member to post their stuff on ************, in my mind, does not constitute poaching, because the member in question can simply continue to post on both sites.

So, after my exchange with Todd, I did some investigating into this whole poaching matter. From what I uncovered, there were, in fact, some ************ members who reached out to Vault members and asked them to check out ************. However, not one of them tried to convince anyone to stop them from posting on the Vault. This part is key, because, as I said earlier, there’s no reason why someone can’t post on both sites.

This, incidentally, was exactly what I (and some other members it seems) were planning on doing. While I was busy helping ************ set up shop, I was also fixing up stuff in the Skyrim CB group that was affected by the site move. When I finished my latest Fallout build, I posted it on both sites. And guess what? None of the ************ people had an issue with my continuing involvement on the Vault. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Vault, as it had been brought to my attention that a number of people here are concerned about the extent of my involvement on ************. So, I’m going to make this simple; effectively immediately, I’m resigning as host on here.

Anyway, I realize that you may disagree with me and believe that what has occurred constitutes member poaching. Obviously, you’re more than free to believe that, but if you, then you should know that by that logic, Todd has done some poaching of his own. Some of you might remember Nebula. For those of you that don’t, here are the relevant facts. Nebula was a member of the Vault who was banned last year. Since then, he’s gone on to join ************. In other words, Nebula is currently a member of ************, but not the Tamriel Vault. During my exchange with Todd, he sent me this:

So imagine my surprise when I found out he sent the following message to Nebula:

Given the recent drama and the fact that Todd could have done this at any point during the last year or so, it seems a bit dubious that he would pick now, of all the times, to apologize. Nebula even brings this up in his response to Todd.

Anyway, the point isn’t whether or not Todd’s apology is genuine. For that matter, I don’t think that there’s anything inherently wrong with Todd trying to reconnect to Nebula. What I do have issues with, is that Todd is reaching out to a ************ member to (re)join the Vault while banning Heroic, Tae, and others for reaching out to Vault members to join ************. There is a clear double standard at play here, and there is nothing fair about it.

Anyway I have a makeup party to go tonight (lucky me /sarcasm) so I may or may not be around to respond to anything, but I just want to add that if any of you need to get in touch with me, or simply want to ask me anything about what’s going on, feel free to send me a message on either site; I still plan on hanging around.