Regarding Unvotes
As you all know, @gmuxx is a member of @noblewitness. Earlier in September, he stepped down from his position as a moderator on the PAL Discord server, home to the Minnow Support Project. The reasons he cited were the time investment between modding there and his other projects, concern over his health, and concern over the pervasive sentiment against @sircork. He left his position peaceably after informing the other mods of his reasons.
Following this, he had a conversation with @aggroed regarding his reasons for leaving. In the conversation, Aggroed laid out that he would be removing his support “from all those who work with and endorse Cork” until he was satisfied that Cork’s behavior had changed into what he considered to be constructive. The screenshots are pasted below so that you can see the comments in their context with the permission of @gmuxx.
Following this conversation, @anarcho-andrei reached out to several friends and colleagues who were receiving a delegation from aggroed and supported noblewitness, either by voting directly or working with us in some way. The purpose was to inform them. The decision about what to do with that information was left up to them, but all of us felt it was important for them to be aware of what could potentially happen.
Over the last 22 days, the following accounts have removed their witness votes from noblewitness:
neoxian
ma1neevent
juliakponsford
pennsif
acidyo
torico
meno
helpie
paintingangels
amberyooper
isaria
jrswab
techslut
krnel
dune69
nonameslefttouse
fishyculture
longsilver
sidequest
netuoso
jeronimorubio
perceptualflaws
chrisroberts
Users are, of course, entitled to vote for whatever witness they want for whatever reason they want, and the same goes for unvoting a witness. However, having spoken to a few of the names on that list, it is abundantly clear that at least some of these votes were removed due to social pressure for political reasons. This raises the question of why the rest of them were removed.
Given what Aggroed explicitly stated in his conversation with Gmuxx, he's most likely using his influence to force other users into making decisions they would otherwise not make. His sentiment toward Cork is abundantly clear, and he has sufficient stake to unduly influence other users into withdrawing support. This has nothing to do with merit based on work product or projects, but because of a personal vendetta against Cork.
If it were any other way, why would Aggroed refuse to support users simply because they work with Cork? What does that have to do with anything else they’re doing to improve the platform or build communities? This has nothing to do with informed choices based on the quality of the users supported. This is to inflict damage on others because Aggroed has a personal grudge against Cork.
This behavior is nothing more than bullying. Plain and simple. Aggroed has bullied other users into making a choice he has no right to force them to make. This isn’t simply bad leadership. It’s bad character.
I've spoken directly to two of the people on your list. The other 21 have come to their own conclusion. I've shared that note to exactly zero people outside of the MSP Modpit. You did not have my permission to share beyond your mod pit, and you are acting dishonestly suggesting otherwise. Regardless, I'll stand behind those words.
Noblewitness is a toxic entity. You are losing votes because your on and off chain behavior, choices, attitude, ways you interact with others, and outlook are violent, dishonest, caustic, delusional, and harmful to the chain. Was it my fault Ned muted Cork for trolling and welcomed in the Streisand Effect without fear? Your words and how you treat others is revolting and represents psychotic behavior. You are experiencing people turning away for that. I'm not masterminding the effect. I'm sitting back (and sad laughing) as your own destructive patterns ruin your efforts.
Not surprisingly you're self destructing. You can lay blame at everyone else's feet as that's part of the toxic element of your group, but the reality is different than your totally disjointed view.
As I mentioned; withdrawing my support from anything you do isn't personal. It's also non-violent. I'm the master of my own finances, consent, and who I choose to do business with. You don't understand simple terms like consent. How can you be a good witness? Who in their right mind would vote for you on this chain?
The second you change your behavior to be productive and find a peaceful way to interact with strangers and MSP members I'm happy to reverse course. Until then I suggest you stop poking the bear that's happy to ignore you.
If you'd like to experience success change your behavior and seek mental health counseling. This isn't a joke. I think you all need professional counselling.
Flagged for dishonesty and rewards disagreement.
PS I'll be extending my personal ban to Rhonda and Gmuxx as well. You've both become unhinged. Andrei is in danger of joining the list if he continues his whisper campaigns.
Once you release information to any group, your control over that information is moot. There's nothing dishonest about this. You're welcome to look up the laws concerning whether statements made in the presence of or shared to third parties are enforceable on privacy grounds, and you'll see this is the case. This is eminently reasonable, whether or not you would prefer it to be the case.
At no point in time have we done anything aside from make a reasonable conclusion based on your own statements and ensuing behavior of other individuals. Moreover, what violent behavior have any of us engaged in? Or dishonest behavior?
The replies here are putting the lie to your post. You blame this on aggroed's politics and the replies are telling you it was cork's behavior. I do not care what you do, I am telling you now: One day he will turn his hatefulness on you with little or no provocation. THEN you will understand. He was really nice to me until he wasn't, too. You say he has changed, but this was very recently.
Given that more than one voter we've spoken to has explicitly stated that social pressure for political reasons motivated changing their vote, there is clearly more to this than simply "well I don't like Cork."
If that isn't the case for you, then I understand. However, you don't speak for all the users mentioned. We would think that if there was some sort of collusion to pressure voters in changing their votes, it would be a serious concern worthy of investigating. Given Aggroed's previous statements, he is the most reasonable person behind it. If it isn't him, as he stated, then who?
Or are you suggesting that the users we spoke to were simply lying? And if that was the case, why would they lie about that, rather than simply saying they don't want to vote for a witness that Cork is a part of?
You say people blamed aggroed, but I do not see that in the comments. Who has your back on this story? Everyone posting here in front of God and everyone is telling you cork comes unhinged and it is a real problem. You have been warned, you will see.
You realize that we all have known Cork far longer than you, and in "real life?" We also saw you inexplicably melt down and rage quit your volunteer work for his charity because presumably you weren't getting enough personal attention. As the Director of a nonprofit myself, I see this behavior in prima donna volunteers all the time. You didn't invent that particular tantrum. Do we know Cork can spew venom with the best of them? Hello? We've seen far more than you ever have. However, we've also seen his dealings with people he could have burned completely to the ground, yet he refused to strike the match. There's something to be said for integrity. I'll take a loudmouth troll with a decent heart over self-serving glory hounds any day.
We haven't said that in any capacity. We've made the following claims:
"Everyone posting here" is not everyone listed, nor is it even a significant portion of them. Moreover, what are you warning us about, exactly? Are you making threats now?
I'm not arguing on a legal basis. I'm arguing on an ethical basis. I gave explicit limited permission to share with your mod team. Your team proceeded to share in discord groups almost immediately and now completely publicly. You've broken the spirit of that agreement and even when it couldn't be spelled out in any more detail with multiple people suggesting that you're being dishonest you still can't figure it out. You are literally delusional.
You are incapable of a conversation as you are incapable of seeing even really basic low level human interaction problems that you have. I can't play chess with a cat. I can't seem to have a conversation that meets my basic criteria of a reasonable conversation with anyone in this witness team.
Why don't you take a look at the last post you put out and see if you can find constructive interaction. I see lots of "fuck offs" "fuck you" "everything we do is fresh spring water everything they do it piss." I see Rhonda and Cork having a seemingly rehearsed conversation to basically no one, and anyone that points out it's looks ridiculous is told to fuck off. Your inability to look at any part of your own behavior and see anything flawed especially with the vulgarity and vile response is sickening. You are literally delusional. Everyone on that team needs immediate psychological counselling. GET HELP! You are literally a den of psychotic individuals. This isn't a pejorative. I think you're mentally unhinged and need medical support.
The conversation wasn't rehearsed. LOL But it was a great opportunity to get some of those things said and we both jumped on it.
I hope you bothered to notice that none of the vulgarity was perpetuated by me. Yes, I cuss...but I believe I've maintained a certain decorum even in the midst of things. Except for my conversation with Netty. But I don't think even you care about that little vote-farming cyber-terrorist anymore. He's burned a lot of bridges, too.
It's funny that what you say about us being delusional is the same thing we're hearing in many Discords, chats, and private conversation about the people in PAL who seem oblivious to the farce. For example, all of the otherwise self-respecting, evolved women who suddenly giggle and bat their eyes while Clayboyn drops those horrific sexist gifs one after the other that totally dehumanize and objectify females. HOW could you let that go on in your server, Aggroed? It's disgusting, and only people inside your sphere of mind control seem oblivious to it.
I have a looong memory. I can move past things, but I don't forget them. I remember hearing with my own ears you telling Muxxy that his multiple sclerosis was a product of his own mind. Who would say that somebody? I mean really--who? I watched as your team circled the PAL wagons around Sammo when we started presenting proof that he was defrauding your little minnows rather than supporting them. But because somehow he controlled certain witness votes for you, you requested that we keep it all silent and not press forward with the information publicly. Those screen shots have never been shared. A LOT of very damaging things have never been shared that originated from inside that Discord. The move to excise Sammo from PAL was not made until your witness position was secured by a few institutional votes that seemed to come from nowhere.
I also remember you telling me that on business, you frequently make trips to Blacksburg. You suggested we meet for lunch some time. Well, we all know what operates out of Blacksburg. 'Nuff said. I really don't want to wake up one day with my throat cut, and I'm close enough proximally to VT for it to be a possibility.
Rhonda after considering this further I think it's quite possible you're experiencing a medical emergency. I think your lack of empathy, overall health situation, and general inability to see any fault in any action coupled with your concern that I'm going to cut your throat is evidence that you're having paranoid delusions. I think this warrants immediate medical attention.
You have my word that at no time do I plan to or desire to cause you physical harm. I'll remind you I've been running a peace group for 2 years.
If you think that you are in danger I suggest you call 911. If you are going to cause yourself harm I suggest calling the national suicide prevention line at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
I firmly believe you're unwell. Please seek immediate medical attention.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 oh my god this is hysterical. Thank you for your concern, but...where did I say you were going to cut my throat? Are you in Blacksburg? Are you the one who stands to lose tens of millions if the wrong people investigate? No, but I’ll bet you know who I’m talking about. People get killed over that amount of money. It happens every day. No, I will not be dropping my documentation here nor will I be proving what I learned. There aren’t enough crazies for you to call me to bait me into doing that. But just know there are some things discoverable on the Internet that some folks might get real tender about everyone here knowing.
This is called boundary setting. If you continue to provoke me I'll act. Otherwise I'm planning on ignoring you as I have been. I think you've shown the state you and your team are in to the community. There's no harm to your witness I could cause worse than letting you speak and be heard.
Rhonda, I think you need help. You truly sound like a lunatic. Please seek help.
This is called boundary setting as well: you have no right or privilege to threaten me or anyone else for speaking the truth about your actions. Do I think you will flag me into oblivion? I surely do, because it's all you've got. You can flag my posts, flag all the charity posts, flag TWB posts, flag, flag, flag, flag. Get your bot armies to flag it all, too. Flag the homeless puppies. Flag the homeless kids. Flag the flags. Flag the comments about flags. Flex those bully muscles. All you'll be doing is proving us right.
What you're doing with this "Rhonda you're crazy" spiel is called "gaslighting." Look it up. It's an age-old practice often employed by people who mentally and physically abuse their spouse or significant other, as well as frequently used by those accused of sexual assault to silence and discredit their accusers. Feel free to keep using the tactic here, alongside the flags. It, too, proves our case. You'll successfully hide the posts, which can be remedied with a good solid "reveal post," click, but you can't obscure the truth. Sometimes a good flagging is just what a post or person needs to call attention to the message they're trying to get across.
So go ahead. Flag til you feel better. Or, just do what you're telling me to do and shut up. There's no harm that could be caused to your reputation as a champion of minnows and builder of monster cards than could be caused than letting you continue to threaten and flag and show your true colors. It's what Cork has been saying about you all along, but it took the other three of us witnesses on the team to finally draw it out in the open.
Once again, our reasoning is sound and based in a common understanding that stretches back hundreds of years. The common law tradition, which is based on this common understanding, bears this out. If you don't want your conversation open to third parties, then simply don't share it or refuse to consent to it being shared. Once it's shared to a third party, your expectation of privacy is foreclosed. Whether or not you prefer this, there is nothing unethical about this. You cannot bind people to an agreement they are not a party to, which is why terms like these are regularly found to be unenforceable.
With regards to "the last post you put out" are you referring to the post wherein we documented @theuxyeti breaching a contract he had with Gmuxx? I'd think lacking integrity in business dealings should be in the realm of public information, and people dealing in business without integrity should be scorned and derided to the fullest extent.
As for your continued assertions that we're delusional and psychotic, I'm not sure why you're pushing them. If everything put out by us is delusional, why are you giving it a second thought?
Finally, as was said earlier, we've spoken to more than one of the voters listed and they explicitly stated that social pressure for political reasons was the motivation behind changing their vote. If you fail to see how the statements you made relate to this claim, I don't know what to tell you. I would certainly think you'd want any suspected collusion to pressure witness voters to come out into the public.
So if it isn't you, then who? We welcome any collaboration to get to the bottom of this.
Hmm... notice how the Discord adminned by Rhonda and GMuxx never once banned or whispered of banning any PAL members? Hmm....got one in there chatting now, and he's quite welcome to remain. Our folks will treat him well.
I have felt welcomed there by the people there, but I can't say that I feel an urge to spend a great deal of time there for fear I might gain the attention of you or some others. I have the utmost respect for Muxx and understand some of his thoughts on this. The general populace of the Block has been great and that warrants my time there.
The best way to get my attention is to submit something for editing. Otherwise it's pretty safe territory. We've never once had an issue with a PAL member, other than the occasional knee-jerk response of thinking an attack was happening when it wasn't. Hopefully those are all sorted. Our executive offers are great about reaching out when those things happen.
But you kind of prove my point here--any pressure you feel to make a choice or to steer clear isn't coming from us, and it never has. These were ideas that seeped into your head while spending so much time in a place where toxicity is the status quo. Being immersed in it 24/7 has an effect. You start seeing punches swung when people were just reaching to scratch their butt. And it's understandable. You've thought there was a war when there really, truly wasn't. . .at least not on our end.
Our folks love you, Disco. You are welcome any time.
Not really sure what whisper campaign you're referring to @aggroed.
As a completely neutral bystander who has zero insight on whoever @sircork is, I say must fixation appears to come from you instead.
@aggroed made a very simple cold logic decision and stood by it, one many people can easy relate to as the bare basics of community management.
Yet you turn it upside down replacing his reasoning with emotions, while discarding your own credibility when replying to to @acidyo, since permission to share that conversation beyond the mod channel is clearly not given.
As mentioned in the response to both aggro and acidyo, once information is shared to third parties, there is no longer any expectation of privacy. This is true the world over. This is especially true regarding what we feel is poor character based on a decision to withdraw support from others based solely on their proximity to Cork, rather than the merit of their achievements.
My opinion is based on my experience managing my non-steemit community and from constantly getting kicked out of small groups where administrators lose their heads over the most absurd little things.
You're the one who shared this information. You, not third parties. You went out of scope of the agreement you suggested yourself. This does take credibility away from you.
Regardless of having shared the conversation, you had already lost a lot of credibility from a community administration point of view, which requires not siding with anyone or anything but the community itself.
Since you contradicted this in one group, it shows you might do it again somewhere else, and as a witness, it could mean steemit. Risks can overcome benefit. This is political reasoning on it's own.
Last but not least, you could have reached out to each person on the list individually instead of posting. This also has weight in witness voting.
Giving people potentially unwanted exposure, choosing a politically incorrect shortcut to deal with the situation, and of course naming names. All of these are potential deal breakers depending on their personal preference. You might lose further votes because of this.
Being a witness is a really big deal.
We are a third party. The conversation was between Gmuxx and Aggroed. Again, once a conversation leaves the confines of two people and is shared to a third party, expectation of privacy in those communications disappears.
What have we contradicted?
As for the users on this list, we have reached out to a number of them, both individually and as a group. Some never replied. Others were less than reticent. However, I would argue that exposing an attempt to pressure voters by exerting undue influence for political reasons is something that is worthy of community awareness. Given the communication shared by Aggroed and Gmuxx, one can easily draw a logical inference between the two.
As for the unwanted exposure and naming names, voting/unvoting witness is visible on the blockchain and publicly available through a number of different sources. Granted, this information is collated in a particular format here, but all of this information is publicly available.
We agree that being a witness is a really big deal, which is why when we discovered that there was the possibility of coercive influence on people's witness votes, we decided to go forward with this. Prior to this, as stated, we made people who could be impacted by Aggro's decision aware of it, in the event they were not already aware. We made no public statement at the time this happened.
Giving it further thought, your post is very fair, because it's about publically disclosing the political reasoning (or lack thereof) from huge witness votes, which is relevant to steemit users in general.
Even if I could guess their motives, it is nothing but guessing afterall.
Aggro and Cork (named in alphabetical order) need to sort their differences out on their own and not get a witness team or voters or who knows who else among and of the communities involved in their personal agendas and vendettas.
That is my stand on this, The Writers Block (TWB) is a lot more than any one member of a witness team and personally I believe that TWB has through its activities and all round involvement on Steem been a huge contributor to many things we have here today. So too have many other similar communities, many great people who are very constructive and proactive.
So I don't like where this is, nor where it could lead to.
Another member of the witness team is a good man, who is finishing off his Law degree (if I got that right), Andrei is definitely an asset to any community as such and I dare say that even the choice of words here are not actually crossing the line from what I see, but definitely enough to get anyone like myself rather dissatisfied that this indifference that Aggro and Cork have hasn't been settled elsewhere in an appropriate manner.
I can say openly that I like where TWB is heading with its projects, from the announced new front end to the publishing house all the way to the incorporation of SMTs. That is what interests me and not what two individuals have between themselves.
I hope that I haven't upset anyone with my view on this topic, but I had to get it out there, because I feel that this is already way out of hand.
Yours sincerely
@jackmiller
What breaks my heart is that for a year now, myself, TWB, and even Noble after we formed a team have endeavored to co-exist peacefully with PAL, despite some heinous backstory that I mentioned here in another comment. Cork never forbade us from voting Aggroed’s witness or any of the other witnesses affiliated with PAL. We even listed those witnesses on banners and other marketing media and promoted MSP heavily in posts, radio shows, and interviews. That courtesy was never returned, not even for TWB, which has nothing to do with Cork and Aggroed’s beef.
PAL members were free to come and go as they pleased, and some were even moderators in our server. They never had to worry about walking in to anti-MSP sentiment being blasted around public chat rooms, yet anti-Cork sentiment was a running joke at MSP. He’s not a perfect person, but he’s been quite thoroughly demonized by an entire Discord server, publicly mocked, humiliated, and gaslighted. Has he ever done anything wrong? Sure. He’s made some bad decisions. Very bad decisions. But they’re all quite public, meaning there are no further horror stories waiting to spill out. When it comes to bad actors doing unsavory things in PAL and on behalf of PAL, I have reams of unpublished documentation that I truly have no desire to use, though I’ve alluded to it a bit lately. My point? Cork’s track record is very public, so it’s very easy to find “offended” parties eager to pile on in contempt. What goes on with PAL is behind closed doors, insidious little machinations and management of people and behaviors to project a certain image even while certain witnesses climb higher into the realm of a completely centralized top twenty microcosm.
Most people reading these comments are unaware of the Sircock account that was obtained by prominent PAL members with the intention of humiliating Cork in an even more public manner. There’s a history of upvotes on related posts and comments from people who otherwise portray themselves as upstanding, community-minded people. Yet the same people associated with that account feign shock when Cork goes after them in public? The only thing regular users see is Cork trolling again, but they have no clue about the backstory because he never went public with it. Ding ding ding! The Noblewitness team decided to go public with it while he’s drunk of his keester in Peru because we’re sick of the crap. Just sick of it. At one point in time, we had an agreement with Cork that eventually he would phase out of the witness and the three remaining members would run it. WE, the three remaining members, quickly realized none of us wanted that, to hell with what PAL expected us to do. And when we didn’t kick him to the curb, the quiet persecutions began. Just ask Muxxy what he went through as a moderator in PAL during the later days. He described the atmosphere there as “toxic,” while PAL members, moderators, and community leaders were welcome in his Discord any time, and even allowed to moderate it.
We don’t need Aggroed or PAL to achieve success with TWB or the publishing house. And that drives them crazy. The only thing we need is the blockchain technology. If they flagged every TWB or Steemhouse Publishing post into the ground and trolled it and poached members, it would have little effect on our success in the mainstream publishing world or the fact that we choose to compensate our authors in crypto. They’ve somehow miscalculated this into being a war of “us against them,” when it never was and never will be. It’s sad that so many people expressed that they unvoted Noblewitness because of political pressure to do so. But all it takes is holding those remarks up to the light alongside the promise (threat?) Aggroed made to GMuxx, and we don’t have to say another word.
Let me clear up some things on this specific issue since I am the one that created the @sircock account, and because it seems you are a little confused as to why. I will do this for your benefit @rhondak, because I have liked you since we worked together reviewing steemit posts for others, and had always sent people coming to me that wanted to step up their writing game to The Writer's Block. I have no ill intentions towards you, I just feel you are misinformed about this situation.
This began at a time when Cork and I were friends, and he DM'd me this post on Discord where an unfortunate typo caused some unexpected laughs. I immediately bought the account when I saw it was available and even told Cork jokingly I was going to use it to fuck with him, but only did that once on the very first comment:
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After that, I started using the account to make immature "royal penis" comments to get a rise out of a few accounts in a context completely unrelated to Cork. It was short-lived and the account sat for a while collecting dust. Since it was doing absolutely nothing, and I wanted to share the fun I had before, I gave out the posting key to about a dozen people and told them to have at it. This is the crux of the situation, and what followed is a series of actions that taught me about the true character of @sircork.
As I said before, up to this point I had considered Cork as a friend. We had worked together for months in PAL, and even after the falling out at PAL, we stayed in constant communication. During the fallout, I had agreed with the points he and others were raising about another mod there, but we just didn't see eye-to-eye on the best approach to handle it. I strive to be loyal towards those who are good to me, and in that particular situation, ending a friendship plus burning a bridge because of a difference of vision on something so insignificant was out of the question.
Fast-forward to a couple days after I had given out the posting key to a dozen people so they could make their own royal penis comments, and in my Discord DMs I received some understandably heated questions about @sircock's first post from Cork. I apologized, said I would take it down at his word, but essentially warned of the Streisand Effect that would create.
This whole situation was brought about as a result my actions. I took responsibility for those actions, and offered my apology and what I could do to rectify it. To be clear; this account was initially made in a friendly joking manner towards Cork, but after the first comment, nothing the said or done by the account had anything to do with Cork whatsoever. In fact, it was in this spirit that I shared the key with others, as some random comment which had no relation to Cork was posted in a private chat, and the key was given at that time so people could given the chance to leave a silly reply to it and comments like that.
Despite my apology, despite declaring to do what was in my power to rectify the situation, this was a bridge too far. Cork had been hurt, and he had to hurt someone back. To this day, Cork is still the only person I've shared my personal social media account with on Steemit. I gave him a certain amount of trust I have not given others, and he took the first opportunity after all this to betray that trust. Him doxxing me in a vindictive rant to the public doesn't hurt me personally, as any half idiot can easily find me if they want to, but it completely destroyed the trust I had built with him.
In hindsight, I should have seen it coming based on the recurring patterns I've seen between him and others, but he was my friend and it was always excused in my mind as the other people who had the problem.
And finally, let me address this concern:
He never brought it public because it's a half-truth. He was only able to get away with it in private where you only hear one side of the story. The account was never intended to troll Cork, and besides the one exception explained above, it never has. And even that exception does not stand alone, as Cork had grabbed every soap box he could up to that point to trash talk and tell half-truths about PAL during a course of months leading up to this. Anyone can personally go click the link above and read this "horrible attack" on Cork, and then go and ask him how many times a week he slanders PAL or leadership there. On second thought, if you ask him, of course he's not going to admit to slandering anyone though, but if you ask me, his self-admitted jealousy is fueling a quest intent on building himself up by tearing others down.
What I'm curious about, aside from the vague allusion to "toxicity" that I guess only @gmuxx could answer himself, I'm confused why the unvotes are even being brought up, when you yourself admit that @noblewitness was explicitly sold to witness voters with the promise that Cork was leaving. No matter what your reasoning, this part of the agreement was not upheld, so complaining about people unvoting the witness will only draw attention to your ability to uphold agreements to your witness voters. What exactly is the point of this post? Are you truly trying to solve any problems? Or did you allow someone to emotionally manipulate you into a flame war?
I certainly appreciate you stepping up to talk about the spoof account. That shows more maturity than I've seen so far in the whole lot.
The people who unvoted because we chose to remain a foursome once we realized how well we all work together--those decisions are understandable. A couple of people have held some intelligent dialogue with Andrei about this recently and there are no hackles up about this at all. We get it, and approve the disapproval, if that makes sense.
The focus of this post is not the unvotes, although those add weight to our concern. The focus of this post is the threat issued by Aggroed to GMuxx. Because we have concrete evidence of it, the fact of its existence can't be argued, hence all the smoke-blowing and gaslighting we've seen here as an attempt to redirect attention. The point Andrei tried to make when he wrote this post literally made itself in the comments. We don't have to say anything else. Mission accomplished. It's all on the blockchain now, and we didn't put it there.
When we first formed the witness team, Cork was planning to leave Steem and did, in fact, for several weeks. This was not a feint. It was quite real. But during that time a few things happened. Nashville, and then Gatlinburg--we spent some high quality time together as a four-member team in Tennessee, and that changed everything. Not only did we all get along as friends, but we got along as business partners. We each bring a different skillset to the table. Take away Cork, and we lose an extremely valuable perspective. We're better with him than without him.
PAL and the larger accounts affiliated with it like Aggroed and Ausbit have not been supportive of TWB or any of our projects for a long time. We've all just moved on and gotten involved in different projects completely unaffiliated with each other. From a business standpoint, we were seeing no benefit from PAL connections, and much benefit from our collaboration with Cork. It was never our desire to choose between the two, and Cork certainly never required it. But when Aggroed smacked down that mandate, the choice was simple. The four of us are alike in this way: those who ask us to pick a side won't be the side we pick.
DID I SAY ANYTHING IN MY COMMENT THAT IS "TAKING SIDES"?
I fail to see it.
I am merely trying to stay as rational as possible and look at things as objectively as possible.
What did I say to get anyone upset idk, but obviously, it looks like I have.
I would say "Sorry", but FOR WHAT?
Tell me, spell it out to me please, what in this above comment of mine was bias towards either side of this scuffle?
PLEASE, I FAIL TO SEE IT.
Note: This comment is a direct result of being blocked by a person on Discord, maybe coincidence, but life has taught me that there are no coincidences in life.
I fail to understand WHY.
I unvoted after your last post which was full of so much vitriol, I couldn't believe it. I didn't get one reasonable reply to my comment and it was obvious that you guys are just interested in stoking the fire. This post just further cements that it was the right decision for me.
I will not argue that a certain member of our team tends to be a bit...extreme in his interactions.
Can you provide a link to the post you're referencing? Our last posts don't have many comments at all on them, aside from this one, and the last post we made involved exposing a breach of contract. Is it a comment in another thread maybe?
https://steemit.com/steemit/@rhondak/soyouwannabedivisivebringit-8njg6hobo6
This dumpster fire is what I was referencing.
I thought it was fairly obvious but incase it isn't: https://steemit.com/steemit/@rhondak/soyouwannabedivisivebringit-8njg6hobo6
To be fair, when mentioning "your last post" it's helpful to specify which "you" was being referenced.
As for this being grandstanding of some kind or stoking the fire, a very clear, logical inference can be drawn between a user stating that they are being pressured to change their vote by someone else and another user stating very clearly that they would be withdrawing support for others based on a personal grudge.
If that is, in fact, not the case, then we welcome any evidence to the contrary regarding who is in fact doing this.
Seeing as numerous people are telling you they unvoted because they have seen first hand the bad judgement and drama from members of your team you might want to re-evaluate your assumptions that anyone is doing this to you.
It's not based on any assumption. As was mentioned in the post, it may not be all of the people who unvoted, but it is clearly the case that this is happening for some of them, as was discovered from conversations had by our team members with these voters. How is that not worthy of being public knowledge? Moreover, that there are explicit reports of this reasonably casts doubt on anyone else claiming otherwise for others.
It is clear that someone is pressuring people to change their witness votes against their own judgment. Based on what we've provided, it's no enormous leap of logic to make the inference that this was Aggroed. If there is another party doing this, then we're welcome to figuring it out. Right now, based on the information available, we made a logically supported conclusion.
I can't speak for anyone else's choices but it's kind of incredible that you refuse to acknowledge that people are watching these posts and all these interactions and they might be unvoting based on their own decisions.
You are welcome to investigate by speaking to each person, had you dmed me and asked I would have told you. I think it's unprofessional of a witness team to make a list of people who unvoted and assume their reasoning. If you want to be clear and transparent in your post you can perhaps add my reasons next to my name in the post.
Reason for unvote: does not want to support a witness that continues stoking drama
edit* or just remove my name from the list
We're also getting some pretty significant support and upvotes from "these posts," Julia. Everybody isn't a fan of collusion. The fact that a witness team comprised of four little nobodies, one of them a guy "everyone" is apparently supposed to hate, is holding a solid 66 ranking despite the torpedoes launched from PAL should really say something. Please don't overlook what it means in the scheme of things.
You still don't get it... you guys are the cause! You Rhonda and your willingness to condone and stand by Cork. Your inability to determine right from wrong. Your inability to converse normally and hear other people. You mock a sexual assualt victim while saying you get why they don't come out of hiding. Your behavior is repulsive. Cork's behavior is repulsive. That being divisive post is filled with toxicity. Muxxy holds his nose and says it stinks but it's necessary... it's not. And Andrei is running a tone deaf whisper campaign.
You are toxic. Your whole group is toxic. Your actions are toxic. You are blind to it despite a whole chain explaining it. This is why I think you're currently psychotic and need help. It's also why you're being abandoned. Seek help. Get out of your victim mentality. Change your behavior. Add value to the chain, and maybe then your actions will generate support.
The paranoia isn't necessary. The cause of your failure is decidedly you and your actions.
"Mock a sexual assault victim?" I was mocking you, hero. Not her.
Oh, and we're not being abandoned. That's not what we're saying. We just want to make sure your behavior does not go unnoticed while you run around expending all this energy to discredit Cork. I mean...why are you so threatened by him, anyway? If all he does is troll you, just ignore him. "De-escalate." Or is that term only applicable to people when you're trying to coerce them into silence so they won't expose you?
We haven't pressured anyone into changing their witness votes. Clearly, someone has done that with regards to us. If it isn't you, I'm sure you'd want to find out who is colluding to pressure voters into changing their vote.
There's no paranoia here. We've made a logical conclusion based on the information we've made publicly available above. Gaslighting us by calling us toxic and avoiding the issue being raised isn't doing you any favors. If there was someone pressuring voters to change their vote, surely that's worthy of investigation. Why are you opposed to taking action on that?
I just want to disengage from this discussion because I feel like I'm talking to someone in a psych ward and I'm not a qualified participant for that. On the off chance there's some reason left in you then here's the thing.
I believe you live in a concocted fantasy world. There's no worthy investigation. There's no pressure. There's nothing out there forcing a major change. It's just people seeing the actions of you and your team and thinking "you suck." One of these days I'll get around to really applying public pressure because your team is a such a toxic den of shit, but to date I can assure you it hasn't happened.
For literally the last year I've ignored you. In the past 4 months I haven't thought about any of you at all. You're not on my radar and you're not people or things that I bother to spend time on. You live in a fantasy world where I'm a villian concocting schemes and am an ever present threat. I'm not. I'm practicing my brother's advice when I was an annoying kid "ignore him and he'll go away."
I'm engaging you now on the knowingly foolish and low probability chance that somehow you actually can get a rational thought through your head.
I'm not gas lighting that you're toxic. You're toxic. Look at the the So you want to be divisive post. You condone and encourage Cork while playing the victim card and say literal shit like "this thing is bad, except when I do it, then it's justified..." He says "when it's coming from us it's pure spring water, when it's coming from them it's piss." He's calling people "fat fucking slugs" and you're jovial like "oh, that's just Cork being Cork..." You think folksy somehow justifies it or deflects you condoning it.
Honestly, what I think happened is that you took advantage of Cork seeing a broken man willing to do technical work and exchange witness votes for attention and an audience. A price you were willing to pay and can't back away from as you need the help. You justified it as helping a broken man, but really you meant to take advantage of a talented person willing to work for free monetarily, but for a rather large price paid in negative attention. I personally think where you may have thought to help lift him up you have in fact been brought down to whatever weird view of reality that he claims as his own. You now strike me as being in Cork's world, and that's largely where I think your current insanity stems from.
I'm discontinuing this conversation. I don't find it productive, and I I don't think you're a open to the idea that you need help more than you need to find a boogey man externally responsible for your self created woes. Again your team is mastering minding your fall. Not me.
In all seriousness- SEEK HELP!!!
Unless you're speaking for everyone who unvoted, you're not qualified to make that statement. Given that this contradicts information we've received from people on that list, I'm willing to take their explanation for their actions over your assertion.
So are you saying that you would use your influence to pressure people into changing their witness vote? Doesn't this, in fact, demonstrate exactly the rational assertion we've made in this post?
So NOW I am the poison apple, and Cork is the poor victim. Oh, how I love this! I think I've made you quite nervous, Aggroed, with the fact that I'm capable of reaching a much bigger audience than you originally gave me credit for. You thought I was a "yes" girl, but you very much underestimated me.
Nobody on this witness team is "after" you. Cork has his share of anger, but we don't sit around in witness chats with each other plotting ways to destroy dear Aggy. All of this stemmed from an offensive YOU launched. This is our response. Want to keep making threats? Go ahead. You're now officially on blockchain record as being the bully and a tyrant that you are:
You can believe we're going to get some mileage out of THAT little gem.
That kind of attitude might play well in your little drone army, but in the real world, I think it will come back to bite you.
I can't wait to tell Cork that you now claim I used him. He's going to bust a gut over that one.
Yes. That post was quite a shit show. Or the comments, rather.
For what its worth, I haven't had any contact with @aggroed about my witness voting nor have I ever talked with him about @sircork. It is true that Cork was a reason I moved my vote from your witness onto someone else but that's from my own experience of what I've been reading him write over time. Also FWIW, I am not voting for @aggroed as witness at this time either.
I'm just writing this as it seems you're coming to the conclusion that politics have effected my decision in un/voting for the witnesses.
Well we appreciate you clarifying your position. As was mentioned in the post, given that other voters have cited this as a reason, it tends to cast doubt on the reasoning behind all the rest. This is especially true when explicit statements indicate that this would likely be the case.
I pulled my vote due to cork. I watched his replies to people over time and was stunned at how abusive he was at times. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming there was back story I did not know about. Then he turned his spite on me and it was absolutely insane. I will not support anything he does at this point, he showed me his "God complex" and I ran the other way.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to this post. As was mentioned earlier in a reply to acidyo's post, once collusion to pressure voters is introduced as a possibility, it becomes difficult to discern whether what is being observed is spontaneous or coordinated.
This from the person who penned one of the most profane and whiny posts I've ever seen on Steem....
https://steemit.com/thealliance/@fishyculture/i-am-no-longer-affiliated-with-thealliance-or-youarehope-this-is-why
Also
Did you get permission from @aggroed as well? Posting screenshots of private messages is something I find to be frowned upon.
Permission was given by both parties to both parties to share the text of the conversation, provided it was shared verbatim.
It appears from that screenshot that permission was given on both sides to share with the respective moderator teams. This kind of post to the chain just feels wrong and dirty.
Once the information was shared outside of the conversation between Aggroed and Gmuxx, that information was shared with the public. While the original sharing of information was limited in scope, neither party could object to either group doing what they wanted with that information. It's already out in the open.
While it might seem like a breach of privacy, what one shares with other users immediately leaves the scope of one's control. It's substantively no different than having a conversation with someone, who then goes on to repeat the conversation with another person or group of people. The advantage here is that the conversation can be repeated verbatim, without the telephone effect distorting the person's words.
Both sides of the conversation specifically limit the scope of the sharing in that screenshot. They both list that they want to share it with their respective moderator teams in the private channels on their Discord servers.
I fail to see how that is 'sharing it with the public'. They in effect said the same thing as 'Is it ok if I share this with a private group of individuals for whom it may be relevant?'
That is not the same as 'Is it ok if I share this with anyone and everyone I choose going forward?'
I feel you might be reaching for a rationalization in sharing it on the chain when this should have been a matter for internal and private discussion with the groups both sides agreed to share it with. We each get to have our own interpretation of this, I am simply stating that I disagree with yours.
Our rationalization is based on common-law traditions regarding whether communications made explicitly in the presence of or shared with third parties, either spontaneously or by agreement, are considered private. We don't feel this is a stretch, as this same communication made in person and recorded, and then subsequently shared with another group, would not be afforded any privacy, regardless of what the original parties wish.
This is an excellent conversation to have, however. Thank you for your replies.
That might be the technical reasoning behind your believing you could do it, but the spirit of both the requests to share is fairly clear. Even if you feel you didn't violate some sort of agreement to keep the sharing limited, I feel you violated a trust by doing this.
It feels hurtful and wrong to use these conversations to help paint what I suspect was a lot of people individually deciding that they wanted to vote elsewhere for their own reasons, based on the behavior of the witness team in question, rather than on any 'bullying' by one person.
What is to be gained by this? Showing everyone you are upset and bothered by some unvotes? Imagine standing up in a group and pointing at another person and claiming, "That guy, he is telling everyone to not support me, look at how bad that guy is!"
Where is that a reasoned and mature behavior?
I had kept my tiny, insignificant witness vote present, because I didn't feel the team had been doing anything I couldn't at least somewhat support, regardless of who was on it.
This however is a bit much. I welcome the day when the witness team begins acting more rational and I can return my vote.
I'm surprised you don't think that exposing possible coercion or undue influence against witness voters is not a worthy goal. As mentioned earlier, we had that reasoning explicitly given to us, and we had this message from Aggroed. Unless you're trying not to, it is pretty easy to draw a logical inference from one to the other.
That said, if Aggroed isn't behind this, and there is some other party or parties involved, we would like to make that known as well. Putting this out publicly was a conscious decision to draw attention to what we were told and what we believe is happening. There's nothing immature or unreasonable about exposing corruption or coercion.
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