#mlp forums

Before you continue, I'll warn you early on that the very nature of what happened on MLP Forums unfortunately makes it impossible to type this story in any context that's even remotely respectful. Yes, what they did really is that bad.

A little back story, first. I joined MLP Forums back in October 2012 largely to peddle the metal covers of MLP:FiM songs I was creating at the time, and to find other musicians. The reception was warm at first, and many of the members took a liking to me. As far as I could tell, the forum was run by a nice enough bunch.

Then I entered the debate threads, and my perception of MLP Forums staff started to change.

Around February 14th, a member by the name of Hollowshield, in a thread about abortion, went on an extremely misogynistic tangent, and capped it off by stating that rape victims were "self-entitled brats" for wanting to abort pregnancies that came about as a result of rape. This is where the corrupt actions of the MLP Forums moderating staff began, but I wasn't aware until much later. Per Feld0's advice in the Pony.fm QA chat on Skype, I immediately reported the post. His post was deleted in a day, so I assumed that the moderators had done what any decent forum moderator would have done in that situation, and banned him.

Not even a day after that, a moderator by the name of Thereisnospoon303 slapped me with an infraction for some of my responses to some extremely offensive posts (many of which were Hollowshield's, including the "rape victims are self-entitled brats" post), due to wording that was construed as personal insult. I will admit that yes, I was kind of an ass in some of the posts I was infracted for, and it was a bit hard to keep my composure given exactly what I was responding to, but many of the posts I was responding to were more insulting than mine on various levels, and those posts were never touched. Every single offensive post that remained preserved and unpunished was of a far-right sociopolitical ideology, demonstrating a clear pattern in what content users were and weren't being infracted for.

This trend would continue for a while, with the moderators -- most often Thereisnospoon303 -- being unnecessarily harsh on my activity on the forum, like slapping me for "abusive post" infractions when going slightly off-topic, and even hitting me with "off-topic" infractions simply because one of my posts, though on-topic, wasn't "blunt" enough, all while still allowing people who are actually being offensive all the free passes they'd need to continue.

In May, I awoke one morning to find myself indefinitely banned from the Debate Pit, with the infraction resulting in that ban coming from Artemis, a moderator I had noticed before had an extreme libertarian bias and tended to delete my posts while leaving the often more-insulting posts of my conservative opponents (such as PoliticalBrony, Hollowshield, Batbrony, and NomDeSpite, which you'll hear about here in a sec) up on the board. The reason for that infraction? I called NomDeSpite a "bigot" in response to a homophobic and insulting rant, which includes language that compares homosexuality to bestiality, calls all allies "cowards", and refers to homosexuality with a slew of colorful and derogatory language. The kicker? Neither he nor his post was touched, and it remains up to this day.

Not long after that, I discovered something utterly sickening: Not only was Hollowshield not banned from the forums for his "rape victims are self-entitled brats" comment, but he still also had access to the Debate Pit. Feeling physically nauseated by this revelation, I stopped going to MLP Forums for a while. Just before leaving, I submitted a mod dispute, making clear that if my "offensive posts" were enough to get me banned, then several other people that posted far more offensive things should have been banned as well. It was quickly brushed off by a high-ranking member of the MLP Forums staff, Swoop, stating that "we have encountered other ill-behaved members within the Debate Pit, and dealt with them accordingly. You are not the only one." Despite this statement, NomDeSpite, Hollowshield, and several other members that had made extremely offensive posts continued to make similar posts in the Debate Pit (and still do to this day).

A couple of months later, I returned after a conversation with Feld0, in which he confirmed what I had felt was likely the case: Hollowshield was never infracted for his incredibly misogynistic and offensive posts. Additionally, there was actually no moderation record regarding that post, despite me having reported it. Feld0 suggested I take it up with the head of the moderator team, Chaotic Discord. It was in that conversation with Chatoic Discord that I confirmed the report was deleted. He stated that, as far as my report not existing, there were only two possibilities: That I never made the report (which obviously wasn't the case), or that a moderator had deleted it. As for that latter point, Chaotic Discord made it clear that he trusts his moderating team entirely, insisting that they could do no wrong. I knew from previous experience that simply wasn't true.

Despite this, I still stuck around, attempting to assist in Pony.fm's development and engaging in general banter with the forum, still knowing full well the depth of corruption and incompetence within the site's staff.

That corruption would show itself again in October. In a thread, a member had asked why bronies seem to be drawn to fedoras. I gave an answer, and though a controversial one, I made sure of two things while making every single post:

I didn't insult any member of the forums directly, and

I stayed completely on topic, making every single post a response to the question posed by the thread creator.

On October 28th, I signed on to MLP Forums to be greeted by a temporary ban, brought about by an infraction for "derailing threads or insulting other members", despite having done neither of those things in the thread even once. Additionally, I was notified that I was being put into the mod queue (which is basically a "only post what we mods agree with" mode on the forum, which in this situation, given the moderator's incessant bias against me, was an effective ban). The infraction was delivered by Thereisnospoon303, a moderator who exhibited his bias several times before, and the same moderator who had previously trumped up charges to infract me for in the past.

Shortly after, Marcato, a moderator, had made a post which basically makes a claim that the moderators are being "verbally abused" by some members of the board and that he was upset about it, vaguely insinuating that there's no possible thing the moderators could have done to warrant complaint. Despite being in the mod queue, I responded to this, providing in great detail my past experiences and how they more than prove that the moderators hold a bias against certain ideologies. Predictably, the moderator that most exhibited that bias and abused his privileges to that end, Thereisnospoon303, promptly came to the thread to allow my posts to go through only so that he could publicly respond to my statements with bold-faced lies.

This post-mod queue ordeal came to a head over the past couple of weeks. Remembering that I had made remarks about Hollowshield's post in the Pony.fm QA chat, and noted in the chatroom that I had reported it, I sent the exchange to Chaotic Discord, knowing full well that this exchange between myself, Feld0, and several other members of the Pony.fm QA team would prove that I had indeed reported that post, meaning that the only way the report could have been deleted is if a moderator had done it. Any decent forum administrator looking to ensure the complete reliability of his staff would have immediately investigated. Instead, Chaotic Discord responded by permanently banning me from MLP Forums. Here, I'll repeat that boldface so you can't miss it: Instead of investigating his team based on verifiable evidence of power abuse, the second-in-command of MLP Forums decided to retaliate against me, ban me, for bringing evidence of that abuse of power to him. So there you have it. I'm now banned from MLP Forums, after contributing heavily toward the development of Pony.fm, simply for being a decent human being. If you ask them, they'll simply say that I was "abusive" and "disrespectful" on the forums. And they're right, if largely hyperbolic, only if they're referring to periods predating May 2013. But after that date, it's complete lie; all of the charges and infractions that led to me being mod queued and later banned were fabricated in order to make my ban seem as if it occurred from my actions rather than their bias and corruption. Basically, if you ask MLP Forums why I was banned, they will lie to you. They have an image to protect.

I initially held off making my issues with MLP Forums public out of respect for Feld0. Outwardly, Feld0's attempts to bring something great to the brony music community through Pony.fm caused me to respect him quite a bit, and some of you may recall that I championed Pony.fm a lot throughout 2013. However, given that he has proven himself undeniably complicit in MLP Forum's corrupt moderating practices, he's made it very clear that he intends to not only do nothing about these issues, but do everything in his power to ensure that nothing changes.

I also held off posting this in hopes that this situation could be resolved internally. That never happened, due solely to lack of cooperation from all levels of Poniverse's staff. Even after I was banned, I made one last effort to reach out to the staff to see if they were willing to finally address the issues that they, for nearly a year, insisted on not simply ignoring, punishing me for bringing to the table. A few days ago, I sent one final request to the forum staff, not to be unbanned, but to try to get answers for issues that have never been addressed, and questions that have never been answered. The response was delivered by Thereisnospoon303, in which he completely danced around the issues and refused to give me a straight answer to any of the examples of moderator bias -- including much of his own -- as well as lying about the reason for my ban.

The bottom line is this: If you've ever done anything good for anyone, MLP Forums is not the forum community for you. The site is run by some of the most despicable people I have ever had the displeasure of associating with. And you don't have to associate with them either. There are plenty of MLP-centric forums out there -- such as Canterlot.com, and my current go-to brony forum, Everypony.com -- and every single one of them deserve your presence infinitely more than MLP Forums.