I apologize if I had hurt you in any way. That was not my intention. Perhaps I misread something. If you are willing to talk about it, you know where to find me, or PM me on Skype when you can.

I don't blame you for leaving at all; Phoenix is a toxic site and the hatred and barbarity are what are keeping me from joining the community. 4Chan is at least somewhat satirical and humorous, but there is no satire to be seen in the hatred perpetuated by the community. I've got some pretty powerful opinions and I don't sugar-coat any of them, so if I joined, then I'm pretty sure my PMs would be full of death threats and other hate-mail for calling them out on their bullshit.

Phoenix is absolutely horrible and I hope you can find a decent site to be a part of.

I was really hopeful when Phoenix started up. Hell, it's why I snatched the fourth sign-up so bloody quickly. I wanted the place to grow into something distant from what FAF was. Instead, it has turned into a toxic pile now. I don't blame the staff for it. I don't blame the users. But there are a few rotten apples that are spoiling the whole batch. It's why I slowly stopped posting there. It just felt like someone was waiting around every corner to piss in your drink, so to speak.

Honestly... I think it's a good choice to avoid places like that. What little interaction I've had with you, it has been positive. I'd rather they don't destroy you.

Personally, I'm not here to defend you. If anything, I think this journal reeks of salt. I won't say I dislike you, but you waved your modship around too much as if desperately clutching to a small amount of authority and needing to flex it at all times. It was annoying, but I'm not here to argue that since I don't know the full story. Don't care to.

Gripes with you aside, I'll have to agree with the fact that Phoenix is a garbage forum. Straight trash. And it's a much bigger problem than anything you ever did. I joined in 2011 and had my chops busted like most idiot noobs, but once I learned to think before I speak, I found a nice batch of friends, a few who I still speak to and deeply cherish. But in the last year and a half, I had enough. I had too much on my plate at the time and it was legit taxing on my patience to go to a place filled with tension, a thirst for drama, and some serious insecurity issues. These people want to make fun of SoFurry for being a hugbox (which it is 100%), but then became the next worst thing, a damn circle jerk. If you stepped out of line or had even a vague difference in stance on whatever their latest consensus was be it something political or not shitting on a talented artist because he makes porn, you were taken to the gallows. I mean, I had one overzealous MRA idiot call me a cowardly tumblrite left extremist because I told him to stop trying to force a subject. Despite never sharing any deep political views. That's just one example.

It was newfag posers and pseudo intellectuals trying to act hard and edgy because at the end of the day, they know they're still furries and are the butt of Internet jokes no matter how much "lulfurries" they say or use the same tired "witty" jokes. All before they ran to the rants and raves section to cry about their depression, or how ugly they were, or how mommy and daddy were about to kick them out of the house. It's a real fuckup.
Are they one of the better furry forums? I guess. But pyrite painted shit is still shit. I put no blame on any staff (even you despite what I said). It was just a backwards, hypocritical microcosm they cooked up and I couldn't tolerate it anymore. So I left. Why would I go to a community that has me on edge the whole time I'm there? As stupid as SoFurry is, NOW they're right about the place. Phoenix is no better, they just swear more. I could go on, but I think that's good enough. Good for them that they left Dragoneer and his dumbass "administration".

And don't even bother with the Phoenix Discord chat. It's no better.

As someone who witnessed some (but admittedly not all) of this, from the voices of several different groups and people that you did not, there's a lot of conflicting interest at play here, and it's important to acknowledge that.

It's not just "the mods versus the trolls."
It's not just people being ungrateful.
It's not something to be championed against.

It's a new forum. People want different things out of it. One of those things, whether you like or not, is flavors of, yes, "old FAF."
We came from "old FAF."
I was part of that forum since 2006. I'm certainly not the only one who migrated over, either.
Understanding and acknowledging the roots of the community are important, lest you alienate your core audience.

You claim that people wanted an idealized version of the community, but you did the same thing by enforcing what many people feel was a very heavy-handed, over-policed state of a casual (albeit blunt and somewhat harsh in tone) community.
Infracting people for doing things like shitposting in the shitpost section, for instance.
Carrying moderation grudges over from ye olde FAF.
Giving people so many infracs, that it regularly became a joke.

Some people handled this badly, and I'm not excusing them of that.
Some people were total assholes about this whole thing.
But there was fault on both sides.

Phoenix does not carry the weight of a major, general audience site like Weasyl or FA.
It does not carry those kinds of pressures, to represent communication lines for something much bigger than its smaller, regular audience.
Phoenix is its own self-contained community.
It does not need to have a squeaky clean image or mentality.
That does not mean that it needs to be, as you say, "4chan's /b/", either.
But being a bit more lax is appropriate given the nature and tone of the site and what it is.

People felt that you cared far more about the image you wanted to portray, than actually connecting with the community, or relating to the users. And focusing more on your personal grudges with a few users than taking care of the problems at large.

Let it be a personal learning experience that one mold does not fit all. What works in one place does not work universally.
To be in an authoritative position over people demands some element of understanding how they work, not just as a general concept, but in regards to that specific culture, and adapting your actions and attitude to fit.
No one wants a mod that's purely there for show, or that holds grudges because of dissent.
They just want you to resolve conflicts when conflicts get out of hand.

In that regard, maybe what you wanted out of Phoenix didn't align with what the majority of the community wanted.
It's not something to be "changed for the better." It's just a clash of ideals.
That happens sometimes.
Maybe you'll find one that suits what you actually want more, eventually.

I guess I'll post since I was directly referenced in this journal and also because I have a deeply passionate love of posting that transcends linguistic constraints.

You claim to be open to civil discussion, but have you ever once opened a dialog with the members of the community who voiced disagreement with staff decisions in a constructive manner? From what I've heard, no. You jump to obnoxious conclusions about others based upon your superficial interactions with them and then dichotomize them into "bad" and "good" with little further consideration.

I suspect you haven't the slightest clue what I was permabanned for on FAF despite the fact that you keep bringing it up as justification for permabanning me on Phoenix, so I'll explain it to you.

I had been a member of FAF since near-inception. During this time I had come and gone sporadically under a few different handles, but posted prolifically when I found the spare time and desire to do so, . I had never accumulated more than 3 infractions on any of those accounts, and the only ones accumulated on the Zaraphayx account were issued by a Benchilla who was notorious for handing out punishments for frivolous reasons and even infracted someone sequentially 3 times just to expedite the process of getting them temp-banned. These were reversed because they were likewise frivolous. I was permanently banned with a clean slate because I posted an admittedly harsh criticism of the moderation staff while drunk (although I sincerely doubt that any of them knew it) because I was reading through old threads for nostalgic purposes and was stricken with annoyance at how many people I used to enjoy posting with were banned not because they were disruptive or toxic to the community but because the moderation staff had a chip on it's collective shoulder and punished people for flaunting their "authority" on a nerd forum.

Now, with that being cleared up, lets talk about the facts surrounding my ban, and the subsequent backlash against the forum staff for your demonstrably capricious enforcement of the rules, usually followed by long periods of indolence and inaction. You make the claim that I was given "countless" warnings and infractions. As someone who can actually count past 10, I can tell you it wasn't countless, it was 11, and they were all in the same 24 hour span of time where you repeatedly reacted with poor judgment and a profound lack of diplomatic initiative.

"What do you mean diplomatic? I'm supposed to talk to members and not just write them tickets like a meter maid???"

Yes, Kalmor. As a forum moderator, you are a tasked with being a liaison between the administration and the community you serve. Phoenix was not made for you, it was made for us, the membership, your idea of what the forum should be is irrelevant and should not factor into your moderation. It is expected that you initiate diplomacy as first contact and then enact stricter sanctions should diplomacy fail. You shirked this step every time and gave off an heir of indifference to how the community felt about your decisions. I had posted multiple neutral-toned thoughts on the direction that Phoenix was going and not a single one of the moderators at the time engaged with me, Carenath did, and then he disappeared.

The altercation between you and I began because I wrote an admittedly mean-spirited post at another user who felt it prudent to assert that many users who posted in a tongue-in-cheek /pol/ inspired thread I had created in the shitpost quarantine zone of the forums were neo-nazis. Another feature you likely share with this user is a lack of a developed sense of humor, since after editing my post with a generic "don't insult other users" message, you thought it prudent to infract me for having the temerity to edit it back to a non-sequitur inoffensive joke for "flaunting staff authority". I, in response, made a point to report every instance of a user insulting another user that I could see in the '"recent activity" link on the forums. This was intended to make a point about the capriciousness and selective nature in which you and your cohorts interpreted the rules. Instead I was set to read-only for "spamming the report system' (even though you moderated several posts I had reported and infracted their authors?). These are all actions which, by the way, I was not privy to since your forum software does not send notifications for warnings, infractions, or any administrative action to user accounts at all.

I attempted to contact one of the other moderators via PM to discuss this action only to discover that my ability to PM was also removed. In fact, the only thing I could do was edit my profile, and continue to report posts.

So I did exactly that, admittedly to mock you, and was banned for it.

Not once during this entire exchange did you think to talk to me like a human being instead of condescend to me and communicate entirely through punishments, this was a failure on your part to play the role which you volunteered for, not a failure of mine for not rolling over and accepting your decisions as just without reason. All of this was done with zero transparency to other members of the forum by the way, whether it was because you were being characteristically neglectful or because you knew that banning me would be controversial, I cannot say.

I would later attempt to communicate the inconsistencies in your account of events through sockpuppets, and explain to you the mechanics of the forum software that made your claims demonstrably false "Zara could have appealed at any time! He chose to behave like a dick instead! He's a toxic influence on the community!". I was instead repeatedly banned, IP banned, and then you closed forum registration just to stop me from creating accounts when none of those measures proved effective.

I am many things Kalmor, but I am not a liar, I am not unreasonable and closed off to resolving conflict, and I am not toxic. What I am, and what I suspect you take issue the most with, is stubborn and irreverent to authority when it isn't tempered with sound judgment. You would be hard-pressed to find a post on Phoenix by me that was anything more severe than "playful mockery". Certain users were upset because they astutely recognized this and could point to daily occurrences of posts made that were far more offensive and disruptive than I had ever been at my worst. In spite of all of your bloviating about how being rid of me was for the betterment of the community, the community in large measure did not agree with you, even if they understandably lacked the courage to confront you about it openly. Unlike you, I make a point to involve myself with members of the community in settings outside of the forums proper, and it is not a boast to say that I am far more in tune with the desires of the member base than you are considering that every attempt I made to find a neutral field to talk to the moderators with was met with disappointment. You guys simply do not have a presence in the community beyond handing out punishments and closing threads whenever it suits your fancy.

Thankfully, your successors seem to be much more accessible and more importantly, willing to engage in diplomacy with offending members before taking more direct action. Maybe a change in the guard is just what this place needs to strike the much needed balance that seems impossible to maintain whenever furries, who are disproportionately egotists, are involved with community management.

Phoenix has a culture of distrust of authority because of you and your predecessors taking liberties with it, and you lack neither wisdom to learn from the mistakes of others, nor the intelligence to learn from your own mistakes as evidenced by this journal. There is no reflection here to even suggest that you believe you were ever in the wrong, you make no apologies for your rash behavior and willingness to distort the facts to maintain your internal narrative, and it's for that reason alone that so many prominent members lack respect for you, it has very little to do with wanting to be furry /b/.

You can take the forums out of the FA, but you can't take the FA out of the forums.

Sorry to hear that your time as a moderator has ended like this and that the forums have shriveled up. Some people just can't understand how much time and effort people like you put into a job like this. Most of this is a result of people only seeing the 'me' in everything, and will never understand what others go through to try and help, with such a mental block.

The silent majority usually doesn't enter a flame war not necessarily because of being scared of getting flak, but because they know it is a simple waste of time to try and reason with people with such a mental block.

But you have learned things, made a difference for the better here and there and made mistakes. Just a shame that human nature focuses on the mistakes rather than all the rest you tried to achieve. Rather stick to things that reward your effort in a constructive nature and let the rest fall victim to their own senseless bickering. You're not a bad person for ignoring toxic things in life, you're merely preserving yourself to make a difference where it's really needed.

<3