Board Thread:Off-Topic Discussion/@comment-32988707-20180128173444/@comment-5051846-20180207193159

Alright! I'm happy to discuss the points you discussed.

1. Late clarification:

I didn't want to explain why I made the post, because doing so required me (as you can see) to throw yet another person connected with VIVI under the bus. I felt that talking about their friend would only prolong the drama, so opted the take people's judgement rather than draw out the VIVI's PR debacle by defending myself.

2. Shadowban?

Here is the postthat I had to give Vocalofan a warning for. I did this in private, and did not publicly pin the blame on them. Here is the message I sent. The forum policies around discussing a dev's behaviour (allowed) and witch-hunting (not allowed) is mainly to do with the language, such as calling them names. Another mod decided to issue a different warning to them based on (I believe) a similar post. I did not ban Vocalofan, Marric decided to put their posts on 1 week moderation - they should still be able to post, but their might be a time delay. Vocalofan apologised to me about the post, and as far as I'm concerned they shouldn't be blamed for the situation. In hindsight my post was inflammatory, and I considered putting myself on probation afterwards, but decided to stay since I'd already promised to clean up the mess. If Vocalofan is upset by my conduct, I hope they feel okay with contacting me about it. I would be happy to learn from this.

Regarding trigger words: Vocalofan was shook up by the situation, and I did my best to help them feel calm via PM. I was not previously aware there were users with past trauma or triggers on the forum, or I would have used other terminology.

3. Finding the tweet:

After seeing the dev's friend's deviantart, I was shaken, and checked their twitter for keywords, and the tweet was one of the first things that came up. I didn't realise the tweet was from a while back, and mentioned it offhandedly because I thought it was a disturbing thing to say. It was definitely a mistake to bring it up, since it ended up implying to bystanders like Vocalofan that the dev's twitter was the reason for my post, and full of similar content (I didn't know if that was the case, since after seeing the tweet I didn't have the stomach to investigate any further - my limited understanding ended up being part of the reason things got so bad).

4. My reaction:

Shotacon is illegal in my country, and something I strongly dislike. It's heavily taboo here, and in the UK, where the one active English Vocaloid developer is based. I bought it up for two reasons:

a) I hate it, and it gets me very riled up. I knew a couple of people who were also against it, and I wanted them to be aware. In short, the classic angry 'here's something you should know' internet post.

b) For what I assumed would be most people who weren't bothered by it, I expressed the opinion that it would prevent the team from getting a distributor, because non-JPN companies don't associate with anyone connected to sexualising children.

4. Am I cool with Cillia?

Sorry, I might have been unclear in my previous post. I do not condone what Cillia did, and expressed strong opinions about it when it happened. I was really surprised that a popular Western producer would post something like that, and was also shocked at how many other famous producers didn't seem to think anything of it. I theorise that the incident being so fresh in my brain was partly why I behaved irrationally, and jumped to conclusions this time around.

5. Stopping the drama:

My first cool down post was made here. The early replies were what I expected to get, and this post was simply an extra precaution that I hoped would keep the shotacon discussion short and civil (I was already feeling some regret, because I don't usually make angry posts). I didn't aim to ban discussion of it, because as you could tell from my original post, it was a subject I felt was important to mention. I then took a few hours break from VO, and by the time I came back the drama had about run its course, which was when I locked the thread. At that point people were aware of the tweet's full context, and bringing up the other things I was inspired by would only have prolonged the situation. I didn't want to fling yet more mud at VIVI. If people only knew about the tweet, I decided to keep it that way until things were fully calmed down, and apologised to the dev in private.

6. Sabotage:

I was mad when I saw sexual depictions of children connected with the devs, and it made me not want to support them any more. I do not have any personal vendetta with the team beyond that, and I definitely apologise for jumping to conclusions about the extent of Purin's involvement. My post was more me venting than an attempt to bring down the team, since I honestly thought sexual depictions of child characters would have little impact on the fandom's opinion, based on the past incidences. I usually try to give all companies a fair chance, and it's not often that something sets me off.

But I won't posture, you can go through my post history on VO prior to VIVI and judge the fairness of my criticisms for yourself. If you read them and feel I have a history of stirring up trouble, I won't try to change your mind. You have the right to hold an opinion on me.

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In conclusion, I hope this eases whatever fears you may about posting on VO! All moderator actions are logged, and Bioloid would be having a word with me if I started banning users willynilly. Feel free to contact him you feel me or Marric's actions were unfair.