Alright, so now that we have some reblogs out of the way, let's get to the story of why @sitting-1n-silence (aka @cunning-conjurer) [hereafter referred to as S1S to save on the typing] decided to A) fabricate an abuse cult and B) decided that I should be included in it.
To understand this story, you have to know that I am friends with @yorubaby and @slewfootwitch. They are admin of the Pathandpractice Discord server. I am not. I was a member for a few weeks a while back but public servers aren't really my thing.
I'm good friends with Yorubaby and in mid March she sent me a few messages asking for my thoughts on dealing with a server member who was making racially insensitive comments. I think it's likely that she asked for my input because I did used to run servers in the past, although I haven't run a public server in gosh, maybe six years at this point?
My very passionate advice was that they should ban the member. I gave this advice based on these opinions:
Server admin need to be less tolerant of racially inappropriate behavior
Server admin are not parents or mentors. It is not their job to morally guide their members. It is not their job to teach social skills.
That it is more inappropriate for a server admin to try and take responsibility for individual member's beliefs and behaviors than to simply remove them from the community
The duty of server admin is to remove problematic behaviors from their community, not to act as parents/guides/coaches for other grown adults
I 100% stand by this advice. I truly believe it is MORE inappropriate for server admin to try and dictate or correct the beliefs of sever members, than to simply ban them. If I had friends who told me, "hey we're running this server and a member said things we don't like, so we're sitting that person down and telling them how they need to change their practice to stay in the server," I would be GROSSED OUT.
Is there a morally gray line when it comes to objectively problematic behavior, like racially insensitive comments? Perhaps.
But I very much doubt that anyone is going to seriously say, "no, these women of color who were personally triggered by these comments have a duty to sit down and create space and teach the person how to be less problematic, and they are abusers if they don't."
Anyways... that member was messaged, told why they were being removed from the server, and was banned.
Some time shortly after, it appears that S1S came up with a completely silly goose made-up pants on fire story about the Pathandpractice admin being A) cult leaders, and B) abusers. This story seems to be predicated on the belief that the admin removing the member for racially insensitive comments was not only inherently abusive, but was indicative of the existence of a cult.
You may be asking yourself, so hold on --- S1S was the banned member?
S1S wasn't involved. He was never involved. The banned member is someone else, someone who was friends with S1S (and me!) and according to a conversation we had, "vented" to S1S about his frustrations. I think it's completely normal to be frustrated when being removed from a server, and it's healthy to have friends to talk to.
The problem is that S1S took this story and twisted it into a bunch of bullshit lies to give him an excuse to look mysterious and cool, like he has secret insider information about secret harm going on, while simultaneously refusing to share proof of that harm and going out of his way to make it difficult for people to follow up on his claims.
I know that this was made up, because I have spoken to the banned member who assured me several times that while they were upset at the ban (as anyone would be), it wasn't a big deal and they weren't that upset over it.
100% of the abuse was fabricated by S1S after one guy vented to him about being banned from the server.
The banned member also told me WEEKS AGO that he asked S1S to stop the abuse allegations and expressed fears that the situation was getting out of hand (the reason I was speaking to this member is because I had already known them for some time, we talked on a regular basis, and I did indeed stand up for them and tell Yorubaby that while that person was my friend, it was still their obligation as admin to act in the interests of the server).
So even the person who was actually affected by the ban didn't see it as that big of a deal. (Again, perfectly normal and reasonable to be upset when these things happen... but that member confirmed both to me, and the Pathandpractice admin, that it was not a big deal).
The entire basis of these accusations seems to be predicated on the admin being intolerant of racially charged comments that they received complaints about. So basically, banning someone due racially insensitive comments = abuse. Gotcha.
As to where the cult allegations come from? I have zero idea. I understand that someone can say, "hey, they are not creating extra space and tolerance for people with problematic views, and that makes them abusers." I disagree with that perspective, but I get how we got from A to B.
But I genuinely do not know where the cult aspect came from whatsoever. If anyone is able to contact me with where exactly the cult stuff came from, I'd love to know! I admit to a professional curiosity on the matter.
So you may be saying, Chicken, how the HECK are you involved in this at all??
The reason why I am involved at all is that a few days after S1S started this smear campaign, he seems to have found out that I am actually friends with the Pathandpractice admin (specifically @Yorubaby). On this basis alone, he has decided that the three of us constitute a secret cabal of cultist abusers.
I believe what happened was that @slewfootwitch made this post, and @yorubaby made this post, where they were referencing slapdash early morning astrology readings I made (sometimes I VM my friends with unsolicited horoscopes that day, lol).
Yorubaby made her post at 10:50AM my time. Slewfoot made her post around 12:50 my time. By 6PM my time, S1S had made this post about cursing "fools and their devils" and about an hour after that made a post calling me an abuser.
So that is how I am involved. I am friends with discord admin who banned someone for violating community guidelines 🤷♀️
As far as I am aware he has decided to try and magically harm at least all three of us, although if anyone wants ward testing practice I'm sure the criteria for being part of the "cult squad 2.0" is very low and he'll add anyone to the list.
(Also, does anyone have info on who cult 1.0 is supposed to be? I admit that in a few aspects I'm still left in the dark).
Other sins the secret cabal and I have committed are:
Being nice to S1S early on when he became active again and then kind of stepping back several months before this all came to light (this makes me a "love bomber" trying to "indoctrinate" him)
That's it, that's everything
So I want to sum this up by saying:
All apologies for flooding the dash this morning
My inbox remains open if you would like to share any of your concerns with me
