What the hell Toogie?!

[Toogie53]

TLDR: I'm an asshat. 

 

I'm sorry this ended up being so  long winded. I'm posting this as an answer to many people's questions.This isn't an apology or defense. Just an explanation of how things went down from my perspective. I want people to know that it was my overreaction that led to everything blowing up and the mods were just doing their job that day. I'm going to lock this as soon as I post it. I value your opinions and I'm not locking this because I do not want to hear from you. I just don't want to be at the center of any more forum drama. I've caused enough problems already. I appreciate those that showed me support, but I must admit that my dissenters are the ones in the right. There's been a lot of speculation and I just want to set the record straight. I tried to keep things respectful in this post, but if it is too inflammatory I'll be understanding if the mods delete/hide this. I'm just hoping some people get a chance to see it so they can understand what happened to Camp Wannalottaplat. 

 

The story kind of starts a few days before the drama. I woke up one morning to find that I had tons of games added to my profile by my daughter and I decided to abandon the Toogie53 profile. I had felt for a long time that my profile isn't very representative of games I actually enjoy and this was months worth of more stuff I don't actually want to play if I intended to clean up my trophy profile. After this, I decided I just wanted a fresh start. I broke the news in the camp thread and said I would make a new profile. Initially, I wasn't planning to rejoin the event but changed my mind a day or two later. I wanted to transition to the new profile as early as possible, so I registered the new account on PSNP and started working on getting enough forum posts to be able to join the camp thread on that account. It was slow going. For the first few days, after a couple of posts, the box to reply to a topic would just be missing. I assume it's another way to control new accounts so they aren't disruptive. Things were pretty normal until I went camping in real life. I had decent cell reception so I logged into PSNP when I was laying down to go to bed and started posting in throw away topics like "Post your latest trophy" and "What plat should the person above go for next?" I realized the reply box wasn't disappearing like it had been. I'm not sure if it was a fluke with my phone or if it had just been enough days that the restriction had been lifted so I kept posting for a little while. I did make one actual forum sin by replying on a really old thread to amuse myself. But I wasn't maliciously trying to cause grief on the forums. I'd honestly be a surprised if the number of my posts exceeded fifteen. 

 

This was all taking place in the late evening in my timezone which is the middle of the night for most people. The forums were not busy and my name was all over the front page of the site where the recent topics are. During the daytime, there would be enough activity that nothing I did would have stood out. At the time I did it though, it was noticeable. Anyway, along comes a mod, and he posts telling me I need to start making relevant posts and stop being spammy. I was a little annoyed because on these throw away topics, my posts were just as substantive as anyone else's. I acknowledge that I wasn't posting anything meaningful but I wasn't way off topic or posting Viagra ads or stuff like that. Also, on the particular thread he spoke up on, I had written something more substantial. I had written about having bought a PSN gift card and how I lost it a couple hours later and that I was sad I wouldn't be able to buy the expansions for The Witcher 3 during the PSN sale like I wanted. I replied back to the mod and said something like, "How about you play your games and I'll play mine?" I intended it as a less rude way of telling him to buzz off and leave me alone. I was annoyed about being called out for spamming so shortly after that, I turned off my phone and tried to sleep.

 

Here is where some outside factors probably impacted my overly grumpy reaction to being flagged. Like I said I was out camping. It was miserable hot and I wasn't able to sleep well at all. Along with the heat, we had four dogs with our group and they'd all randomly start barking at each other in the middle of the night. In the morning, I was kind of in a bad mood already. I logged in and realized I had been flagged for spamming by a different mod. He said my reply to to the first mod was off-topic and since I was warned previously he took action against me. I was replying directly to the person who called me out in the forum. That seemed on topic to me, whether or not I was nice to them. Also, I didn't go on to make like 20 more posts or something stupid like that. Sly has site rules posted since 2014 and I didn't think I violated any of them; it even notates that non-meaningful replies "are allowed in topics that rely on those types of replies.'  Needless to say, this flag really frustrated me and felt unjustified to me. When it comes to recreational stuff, I have the mentality of "if you don't like what's happening, take your ball and go home." So I went to the camp thread and said that due to antagonistic moderators I was ending the event. I said I was sorry and would send badges out to those that participated. For context, I have been disenchanted with the mod team for a long time. It was a thing that grew over time and since I was pretty silent about it. I don't think more than one or two others would even be aware of it. I have my reasons, but since I never brought any of those issues forward in the past, I won't use them to prop up my opinion now. Just as a baseline, know that prior to what happened, I already didn't like most of the mods. In this situation there was very little provocation from the mod team. Just some built up resentment on top of a crappy nights sleep and maybe some heat exhaustion, which lead me to make a regrettable decision in a moment of anger. 

 

As I said, it didn't take me long to regret my decision to end the event. However, when I went back minutes later thinking to edit my post, make an apology, and unlock the thread, it was gone. I thought it had flat out been deleted. I didn't realize it was just hidden and could be brought back. This deletion riled me up further. After that, a lot of what I was posting at that time was being hidden/deleted shortly after I posted it. I can understand why because I was pretty negative about the situation at hand. It was hard to communicate with people and I couldn't do anything to regroup and stop the situation from spiraling further. I saw Profbambam was trying to pick up the pieces, I gave him my blessing but I had decided to stay away and not let further drama bleed into that thread and ruin it too. I knew I had overreacted but the damage was done. I had stated I was going to lay low for a while so that's what I did. I logged out for most of the day. Later that night, I checked to see how ProfBamBam was doing at bringing things back online. It was still in its early stages but I saw it had potential. I also noticed in prof's event thread one of the mods had stated he had just hidden the original thread and he could bring it back but that I seemed uninterested. It hadn't actually been proposed to me but I could see there was an olive branch being extended. I PM'ed him and thanked him, but explained that I thought I had wrecked things sufficiently and think that letting Profbambam have his shot at it was probably the best thing for everyone at that point. The mod was nice enough, but after a couple of replies back and forth we were back into argument territory about what's been going on so I apologized for my part in things. Mostly it seemed to be about what was being posted publicly vs handled privately. They always engaged me publicly and never privately so I felt his point was moot. Anyway, after that went south, I logged off the site again.

 

Other than replying to some direct messages from people, I've been off PSNP for the last week or so. At this point, I wonder why I even got mad about a warning point in the first place. I was a total baby in the situation and shouldn't have acted out in the way I did. I haven't really been doing anything worth mentioning gaming-wise for the last week. I took some time to think about things like I told some people I would. I should have considered all the people participating in my event and not let my personal beef affect them at all. I also realize now that my attitude towards the moderators has been really ungrateful and unjustified. Without their daily contributions, there would not be a really awesome site like PSNP for me to even want to be a part of. Their moderation has shaped this community more than any event I have put together ever will and the reason this was a cool place to be was because of them to begin with. Despite that revelation, I don't really know what my plans are and I doubt I'll go back to running events. Things feel different now and I don't expect the community to be very forgiving towards me. Even if I were to make a new event, I don't expect many people would want to join since I broke everyone's trust by thrusting the last one into chaos. I hope you guys can understand it was just a bad morning and pretty much one bad decision that led to bigger consequences. And for what it's worth, I'd go back if I could and do things differently. Since I don't plan to trophy hunt on this profile anymore, I don't see the point of continuing to be a presence on PSNP as Toogie53. This isn't really goodbye, but its probably the last time I'll post anything as Toogie53. When/if I am back it will likely be to a much lesser extent. Best wishes to all of you. Happy gaming. I'll see you around, maybe.

 

 

 

Wreck-It Ralph: I know, I know, I know. I'm an idiot.

Vanellope von Schweetz: And?

Wreck-It Ralph: A real numb-skull?

Vanellope von Schweetz: And?

Wreck-It Ralph: A selfish diaper-baby.

Vanellope von Schweetz: AND?

Wreck-It Ralph: A stink-brain?

Vanellope von Schweetz: The stinkiest brain ever.