Sanctuary of Hermes

Xenia

Thank you for making us aware of the Xenia declaration's changes. We have been in touch with the people from the Xenia Declaration, and invited them to the server to look for themselves. We got the news yesterday that we are back up. http://www.xeniadeclaration.com/

Problematic Authors Screenshots

1. The screenshots show a discussion about problematic authors, and I was looking for the reasons why Winter was problematic. The post in question that prompted this discussion was inspired by/referring to an earlier version of this post (but just mentioned she was a yikes): https://hellenic-reconstructionism.tumblr.com/post/177142949422/authors-to-watch-out-for-in-hellenismos-wip 2. I do not know the people discussed in the screenshots, and they have never been in our server. For the record: I agree - there is enough evidence here - but I didn't have any of this information at the time, nor subsequent information that showed that she defended a nazi whilst knowing he was a nazi. So, I was doing what I always do - and asking for more details. I'm sorry that the people involved thought differently. It's not always easy to read people over a screen, and I hadn't realised anyone was upset at the time. Had I known, I would have been less carefree with my words. You matter, your opinions matter, and I'm sorry I suck at showing it.

3. I do not know any nazi's. The friends I've had who had problematic views, as it mentions several times in the screenshots, were capitalists and people with unexamined bias. Some of whom I met through work environments, and it wasn't clear what their views were at the time we met. This was a discussion on problematic authors, who may have known each other through working with the same publisher. I don't know any nazi's. I've never even met one, except online. I sincerely hope it stays that way, but if it doesn’t I’ll be getting some boxing gloves.

4. This author's book has since been removed from every recommended authors list we could find on the server. Here is how the conversation ended:

Kicking people unjustly / power 

1. Helping to run a discord server isn't a particularly powerful position. It's an (at times very painful) job that people with a sense of responsibility do when they feel there is a gap that needs to be filled. If you want real power, go into politics or start a company. Or, I don't know, be born a rich white man - that seems to work well for them. Not everyone has an ulterior motive. Some people just want a place to belong.

2. Not every server is for everyone. We have banned 32 people total, for reasons ranging from trolling, to being an absolutist anti-social jerk, to stalking, to genocide & nazi apologism. No one has been banned for advocating for the tearing down of statues. We think we know who that accusation may have come from (screenshots below), based on timing details and stuff said in other discords. If that's what you left legitimately thinking you were banned for, I'm very sorry but it was not the case. We do try to send details of the reasons for the ban, and did in this case, but sometimes things go less smoothly than is planned (as recent events highlight). [P.S. Tear down all confederate and colonial statues].

[Disclaimer: these are shared only to show how the decisions were made at the time, not to further incriminate anyone. I was not present when the remarks were made about Julius Caesar, and I have no idea what the context of those were. At this point, I suspect no one else remembers either.]

Reddit

1. A lot of us were in the old Reddit discord server. I'd been there a few months when it closed down. From what I understand, the reason it closed was burnout in the admin team. It shutdown, and some of us regular members started a new one so that a community that we relied on wouldn't just die. It was right at the start of a worldwide pandemic, and we needed each other. Some of our rules and channels were taken straight from that reddit discord - they were the social norms of that community.

But we did change things. Our discord isn't the same sort of place as that discord was, and I think we are better for it (again, not because of nazis). We are continuously changing things, as the community changes, and plan to continue doing so.

2. We've removed all links and feeds from that Reddit, because we agree. There's been a steady downwards spiral for the entire time our server has existed. We kept it for a time because it let us jump over easily to offer new people help, but we don't think that that reason is enough to negate its negative aspects.

[Discussion re: asking reddit if we could post our discord there. They said no.]

The reason Faun was banned

1. People who feel safe inside a community deserve that feeling of safety, and don't deserve to have a community ripped out from under them because - as a trans person - they tried to expose someone as a TERF. If someone calls you something that you don't agree with, you don't respond by violating their privacy (and the privacy of innocent bystanders) on a completely different platform. That's not a healthy social norm. I don't buy the rhetoric of "if you didn't want to be robbed, you should have locked your door". 

2. We apologise for the way this was done. The ban message should have had more specific details in it. 3. I'm not here to debate whether said person is a TERF.

Harassment of a minor

1. This took place on Tumblr via anon asks. We know nothing about the person responsible, up to and including their age or gender. We are pretty damn certain they are no fan of our server though. We looked into who it could be but with no leads, all we could do was make public announcements against the anon, & lock the server down further. As has been stated several times, the server is fairly public. We had thought that was a positive thing, because it helps those who need it find community and resources, but we didn't account for bad faith actors. Our current system - via alt-dentifier - doesn't protect our community as much as we hoped, so we are looking into other options. (Sidenote:  Someone should suggest to Tumblr that anon's should still have a verified account behind them so this stuff is easier to shut down when its cross platform. Its currently a pretty big safety concern.)

2. There's actually lots of things backstage on this one. We were running around everywhere trying to work out what could be done, but a lot of it identifies the user in ways that I don't think are acceptable to share publicly. Though if he personally would like to see the screenshots, we can arrange that. We've got your back on this, and I'm sorry if we haven't done enough that you know that.

Outcomes

I'm not sure if I managed to get all the accusations mentioned – I don't really know how to use the Tumblr platform, and they just kept coming.

Amongst all the hate, there were some valid points in there, and we are looking into how we can address them:

We’ve cut all influence from the Reddit Hellenism discord (and replaced it with more wholesome subreddits on lyres and stoicism)

We’ve reworded and altered some of our rules and values, as they were more hostile in some places than they were intended to be

We are not entirely sure what the cultural backgrounds of our mod team have been, or those of our community as a whole, as its not a question we ask. I fully agree that you can’t solve diversity problems without having a diverse team that includes as many voices as possible, and we’re looking to fix that.

We’ll make sure ban messages get voted on, so that the team picks up on issues before they are sent to those we are banning. 

We’re going to institute a general chat channel that sits outside our main channels, but has access to resources. This channel will be a holding area for new members until the mods and community get to know them well enough to let them through. We want people to be able to find community, but we do need to do more to protect the community we have.

We’re going to change our name, as we’re not here to pick fights, and if nothing else, the name is far too generic.

I’ll try to check in with people who are raising issues from a personal background, so I know the temperature before continuing.

If there’s anything else our community think we should be working on, please let us know. If you have ideas about how we could help you more, we’d love to hear them. The suggestions channel is there, and mods are happy to receive DMs

This is all I have to say. Its been a hard year for everyone. We’ve lost loved ones, we’ve been locked inside, and we’ve lived through massive uncertainty that just keeps coming. I hope we can make next year better; for ourselves, and for our communities.