Due to the forum’s ability to check if people are using virtual private networks to try and mask their IP address, I found out that the user “Jericho” was actually a user that was suspended from the community last October. The only user who’s ever been suspended from the community.
I’d had my suspicions and they were confirmed two nights ago.
First, I want to apologize to all the new readers that Jericho took aside in private messages.
For two months, Jericho would private message every new reader who introduced themselves in the Welcome Topic, pretending to offer help and guidance, which then descended into awful, untrue things being said about me personally, my company, and this community.
It seems “Jericho’s” sole intent was to break down the community from the inside while also, coincidentally, mentioning his previous account name, and how that person was a faultless victim of my greed, cruelty, and my hatred for neurodiverse people. That they stood up to me even though everyone else was afraid to, and I banned them because of it.
I never laid out the complete reasons for this person’s suspension, but I will offer a timeline of events that led to the suspension to make clear how difficult and drawn out a decision it was, how this was not something I did maliciously, or out of revenge. (For the record, revenge and cruelty is just not how I roll. Here or in my personal life. I don’t hold grudges, I don’t seek pain for other people.)
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The reader was taken aside in private messages 6-8 times on Discord and asked to refrain from offensive, aggressive, or inappropriate behavior/discussion, which was all laid out in the forum and Discord guidelines. Most of those issues weren’t official warnings because I am very aware that in an online community of people who have different backgrounds and neurological considerations that the nuances of discussion in writing can be uniquely challenging.
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The issue with this reader’s behavior surfaced after the private discussions, where they became aggressive and claimed everyone was out to get them or that their rights to freedom of speech were being infringed upon.
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The reader voluntarily left the Discord server 2-3 times (I’m not positive exactly how many times.)
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The reader was a longstanding and valued member of the forum community and the behavior on Discord rarely transferred to the in-world areas. I appreciated his contributions and his longstanding presence so chalked it up to Discord being more challenging for him than the forum.
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When I created the “Wagoneer” welcome role to help new users acclimate to the community, I considered making this reader part of that team, thinking that by showing him that he was valued and an important part of the community he would feel validated and the issues would subside. The community leadership was largely in agreement.
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In the weeks that this reader was a “Wagoneer,” issue after issue arose, from making serious false claims about fellow readers to privately telling other readers that I personally had somehow hacked into his private Discord server. I hadn’t. I didn’t even know it existed.
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Later, I posted an announcement about The Briar Society, where this reader followed up with a concern about creating paywalls and I replied to him with as much information as I had at the time, including my belief that artists should be compensated for their work. You can see that exchange here.
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I found out in the following weeks that the reader felt attacked by my response (I had no idea) and told people I hated him and was driving him out of the community, then he voluntarily left. That exchange linked above was the last interaction he and I had. Nothing else happened between us. Certainly nothing to warrant what he was telling other readers.
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Finally, another reader shared with me private messages that this reader was sending. He was still visiting the forum and telling people in private that I hated him, hated neurodiverse people, that I had forced him out of the community, and that he was coming back “with a vengeance” per his new user bio.
It was at this point that I decided to suspend his account for breaking guidelines and ongoing harassment.
That was all in the span of about two years. Even after all this, the decision was difficult, I felt bad about it because I couldn’t find a way to help him feel welcome and comfortable enough to not feel he was being attacked here, and there were weeks of discussion about it with the community leaders.
Post-suspension, this reader continually reached out to Catherine, other readers, and the community leadership multiple times a day, demanding information or to be let back in. His story was different for everyone he spoke with. He either claimed he had no idea what happened and didn’t know why he couldn’t log in, or demanded to see “the record we kept on his infractions” (we didn’t keep a record) or continued to claim that I had no right to suspend him. He also posted in public on social media that I and my company were hostile to neurodiverse people.
Which brings us to December, when he created a new account, using an IP address he thought was masked, and tried to sway every new reader to believe that I was a bad person and this world and company wasn’t worth their time. Most of the people he pulled aside never continued on with the company, most likely because this was their first interaction with it. At the end of the day, I only have my writing, my reputation, and my readers’ trust in me. And he was breaking it with just about every new reader for months.
Because I can’t stop this reader from coming here and defaming me and my business, short of checking every new account that is created, I now have no choice but to pursue legal action against him. It’s heartbreaking and I feel sick about it, but don’t know what other choice I have.
I am laying all this out because I want everyone to know everything, despite what you’ve heard or might hear down the line. He was suspended for years of ongoing harassment and rule breaking. That’s it. Not because I didn’t like him or neurodiverse people. Not because he, in his own words, stood up to me so I banned him. That’s not me. It just isn’t. I still feel sympathy for him and wish events could have unfolded some other way. Again, I’m sorry for any uncertainty any of you might have experienced, and I’m sorry to those new readers who were roped into this drama.
This community is the rarest of gems. There’s no place like it online. It’s precious to me, not only because it’s my livelihood, but because of the people in it and how much they mean to me. It’s difficult to learn that someone I trusted, rooted for, and gave chance after chance has been saying such terrible things about me and what I do, but it is what it is. And I will continue to fight to protect this place and the people who come to play and treat each other with respect and kindness.
Unfortunately, it’s still not over, we still receive multiple emails a day from him, pretending to be other people and attempting to break back into the forum, but from now on it will be handled by my attorneys, not me.
I know some of you are friends with this person and I’m glad. Though you may have heard a completely different story to what I outlined above, that’s okay. At the end of the day he needs friends, especially after losing a community I know meant a lot to him. But no one took it from him. He had a lot of chances to change the situation. He chose instead to try and tear this all down.
Again, I hate drama, and I’m sorry this has continued and I have to write this. I don’t need anyone to pick a side, and if you side with this reader, that is 100% okay too. I only want all the information available, because this has now negatively affected me, my work, my readers, and worst of all, this community.