136 replies to this topic

[CruciasNZ]

Evening people,

I am sorry to report that tonight the Staff have permanently banned TheGodDernMan from the Gothic Wars site. The purpose of this post is to explain what lead up to this, and why we have had to do it.

Everytime the Mod team has had to issue a warning to a Dark Angel member, Dern has "gone to war" on behalf of those members. He was admirably aiming to defend his members by proxy, however it always resulted in him bullying the staff with the aim of removing said warnings.

You may recall that a few days ago the Mod staff warned a lot of members for signature violations. The Dark Angels who were at the time the largest faction received a large share of this. Almost every member from the other chapters that were warned replied in a polite and apologetic manner, this also included some Dark Angels.

There was a post put in the council area, which devolved into a rant very quickly and was therefore locked. Subsequently Dern agreed to another post, on the aim of making the rules easier to understand, in a private chat with me; unfortunately this was shortly sabotaged, derailed and therefore locked again. The third attempt was initiated by me, which Dern has not replied in yet, and that post has been highly successful and will result in some cool changes to the User Profile rules shortly.

We then had the unfortunate catalyst of some members making bad judgement call by making a thread that netted them warnings for sexist images and comments. I will not explain what it was, as the mods consider the matter closed and the members involved have apologized, but it resulted in a Dark Angel making a thread that pointed fun at the mods removing that post. When that member was warned for a video that had paedophilia as a subject matter, (veiled as a humerous video - not acceptable for a site with under 18s), Dern started harassing our Staff with a renewed frenzy on XBL, Jabber and in PMs. He quoted a disclaimer I made in my laughs of the day post back to us in an attempt to justify the aforementioned thread, this disclaimer has now been made clearer and I apologize for any confusion this may have caused the rest of you.

Dern was then told to make a ticket about it, where most of the mods tried to reason with him, but sadly he was locked on target. As the Support Documents mention, we can publish contents of a support ticket if it is in the best interests of the site. The contents of this ticket has been made available to leaders and XO - more on this later.

The Dark Angels were a tightly run chapter, the level of control and care used to run the chapter have kept them together through these long months. Unfortunately it has also resulted in a desire for control, as Dern has told many people on XBL today, he does not like Mods having the ability to warn his members without his involvement. Unfortunately everytime he was involved, he would attack the mods and try and bully them into withdrawing it, therefore you can understand why the Mods did not extend such a courtesy this week. He has also been denied Admin and Mod roles due to concerns (apparently justified) of uncontrollable levels of bias.

This brings me to the final reason for removing him. Today on XBL, Dern and some other DA leaders approached the leadership hierarchy of The Black Templars in an attempt to convince them that it would be in their best interest to move to a new site that Dern intends to found. Considering their previous destructive experience with Ordo, that they have only just recovered from, they forwarded this on to the Staff immediately; this confirmed the suspicions staff have had for a few days.

This new site would be dedicated to Warhammer alone, as apparently the inclusion of other games such as Mass Effect, BF3 and Transformers has diluted the viability of this site. So instead of a special diversity which has historically given us strength and bonded members of different chapters, he wants to go into direct competition with Bells of Souls and Dakka Dakka, Warhammer sites with over 300,000 members each.

Thanks to my previous attempts to forewarn leaders of this site, some of them knew what was happening before Dern partied them, and your leaders will be able to confirm this shortly.

Not all of The Dark Angels are party to this conspiracy, many of them will be oblivious I would urge you to give them the benefit of the doubt as not all of them intend to leave this site. Dern and his chapter has done a lot for this site (eg being the second largest donator), and we thank him for it, however the damage has now been shown to irrefutably outweigh the good. Until someone steps up to lead the remains of the Dark Angels, I have suspended posting in the private areas and applications to try and prevent flaming.

I would also like to extend an apology to the Blood Angels, Space Wolves and White Scars for Derns conduct towards them over the last few months. The damage to relations has been done, but I offer this apology on behalf of GWRS never the less, as we are only just realising just how much of a destructive factor Dern is to our morals and principles as a community. We should have listened to you, we are human and we are fallible, and we are most assuredly sorry.

 

The Disciples of Calliban leader Bullet has stated he follows Dern and the DoC are officially leaving Gothic Wars. I have turned "off" (not deleted) those forum areas, but I have left the social area for now, so their members can choose to still use them if they wish.

[sonofultramar]

The Ultramarines standby to support our Brother on the Rock

[Prosperan Son]

I'm sorry to admit it, but Crucias speaks the truth. I was pulled into a party by Dern himself along with several of his inner council which included Optic, Cyper, Pitty, Semper, where they told me that they wanted my opinion on what would happen if they were to go form their own site. I simply stated to them that it was bound to end badly.After that I didn't say much and simply listened. What I heard caused me great discomfort. They spoke ill of Gothic Wars, they spoke ill of the adminstrators simply because Dern and what I can sadly call his "Cronies" felt that they were not given enough power. Cypher spoke of how they could use Gothic Wars as a recruiting grounds for their own site. I was told not to tell this to anyone, but I felt that Crucias and the other administrators needed to know.  
In the end, the Black Templars will support Gothic Wars and the administrators in this conflict. We have made many friends with the other chapters. While the Dark Angels helped us in our rough times, many other chapters did as well, and we have not been wronged by the Site, so we shall not wrong it.

[CruciasNZ]

The Ultramarines standby to support our Brother on the Rock

Thank you for being an example Ultramar, we need to make sure none of the normal DA members are persecuted or treated as pariahs due to actions for a few.

[Kite Arca]

While I hate to do this but seeing how this has happened and the wheels are turning I too was a witness to all this while I hate to say this all but cru speaks the truth while there were things said that Dern could take members from the site and to his site. I back the site and the mods.

[Fuzzy]

Going on how difficult it was for us in the Templars after the events with ordo i know that every single DA member is going to need the whole communitys help and support, be they new or high ranking, I would urge all members of the community to watch out for them and take the time to listen to what they have to say as each members problem with these events will be different. When ordo left i think we were around the 20 - 25 mark. The DA have 90+ members. This is going to take a while to sort out and belive me the worst is yet to come as very soon if not already there will be lots of confusion and doubt and this great chapter could fall. This community has always pulled together in times such as these and prides its self on being like one big family. Now we all must go beyond what is expected to save our brothers in the DA.

[Master Romulous]

What a sad day indeed.





I have desired to walk away from this game entirely to avoid the drama of the situation, that and the fact when all this petty shit comes into play SM stops being a game. This website is set as a community support FOR games such as SM. Why my leadership has blatantly made a huge ordeal over things that shouldn't even be an issue can only come down to one thing... Pride. When you allow your pride to cloud your own mind so that anything that could be looked at as an offense towards you in any way, shape or form pushes you to leave a community because you believe you were mistreated it shows you no longer have the best interest of your Chapter in mind, your interest is in upholding your own image. When you dedicate yourself to becoming a leader you must be selfless, the men you swore to lead must always be put first. You must be an example to your Battle-brother.

To Leave because of a quarrel over moderator powers or because many of your members got citations from the moderators because of signatures and such is absolutely petty. I myself received a citation for my signature but it didn't bother me one bit, why? Because the moderators are just doing there damn job... They went through every member on this site not just dark angels... We should leave over something so pathetic?

This community for SM is small enough the way it is, why fracture it even to a greater extent and for the most part diminish what game experience we even have left? Because now we have less organized Chapters to make games against or tournaments. It blows my mind at the obvious disadvantages that would be put on the Dark Angel community to go through with this process.

Word to the wise, Dark Millennium or Space Marine 2 are most likely over a year away as an official release date has not even been set for one of the games or advertising for it since DM was scrapped as an MMO. So to think we could make a new site to prepare for a game that doesn't even have a release date is absurd. Not to mention, what players we would have now would have much less to work with and have A YEAR to wait it out with there now much smaller community.

Does that sound at all logical to anyone?



I will remain behind and rally my brothers, my service to THE LION shall never end. I will continue to build The Dark Angels into a well organized and trained fighting machine. My focus has always been on creating the best 8 man team for SM that I could. That will never change. It will now just encompass more brothers.

I do not know the thoughts or opinions of all of my brothers so before anything is done within what will be left of the Sons of the Lion, We will all need to wait and see. I will not allow it to rot though.


NEVER FORGET! NEVER FORGIVE!


There is no substitute for zeal.
Master Romulous, Devote Son of the Lion.

[CruciasNZ]

If the remaining Angels vote for you in whatever means they choose, I will restore you to the levels of power Dern had and do my best to aid the survivors. The same offer of help and acceptance will be extended should someone else be voted for.

[Kite Arca]

Romulus for chapter master 012!

[Fuzzy]

Romulus for chapter master 012!

I second that!

[J NOSK36]

Going on how difficult it was for us in the Templars after the events with ordo i know that every single DA member is going to need the whole communitys help and support, be they new or high ranking, I would urge all members of the community to watch out for them and take the time to listen to what they have to say as each members problem with these events will be different. When ordo left i think we were around the 20 - 25 mark. The DA have 90+ members. This is going to take a while to sort out and belive me the worst is yet to come as very soon if not already there will be lots of confusion and doubt and this great chapter could fall. This community has always pulled together in times such as these and prides its self on being like one big family. Now we all must go beyond what is expected to save our brothers in the DA.

I agree with fuzzy, we had an extremely tough time when ordo left, the dark angels that remain will need the help of the community and support from all members, there was doubt that the templars would continue, and the sad truth of this matter is that real life can come into affect, friendships can be destroyed because of this, i urge all members of the site to be there for the dark angels and support them, talk to them, they will need it, personally when the templars were experiencing our time i really thought we were gonna go under but i had the support of the community and we were able to rise from the ashes. To sum this up, if you are a member of this community, then show it by helping the dark angels in this time of struggle and confusion.

[SpecSlaughter22]

well said romulous! if i was a real human i would cry!:-p yeah none of this is logical. but we will wait and see....till then ive got your back Rom:)

[J NOSK36]

Romulus for chapter master 012!

I second that!

I third that!

[Draco Ny'ade]

we are all thinking of the dark angels

[sonofultramar]

I thank you for the post Romulus and we need to help out the DA. I think we he others Chapters should stay out of the process of them selecting a new leader. I believe this should be an internal thing for the DA.

[Fuzzy]

I thank you for the post Romulus and we need to help out the DA. I think we he others Chapters should stay out of the process of them selecting a new leader. I believe this should be an internal thing for the DA.

It will be internal, read the thread romulus made in the DA section

[Master Romulous]

You will be sorely missed dear brother...

[DarkLibrarius]

As a senior battle brother and company master I call for NIGHTWOLF to step up as leader to see us through these most dire of times! We've always been a chapter that operates by command and I've always advocated senior leaders to provide us with answers during tough times.

Romulus, dont be so overzealous to step into leadership. You know this isn't going to be decided.with an election. It's going to be decided the way we've always done it by way of inner circle. You can have the backing of a billion black templars, Disciples of Caliban and whomever wants to back who. But its the Dark Angel leadership that will decide who succeeds Dern.

[Master Romulous]

As a senior battle brother and company master I call for NIGHTWOLF to step up as leader to see us through these most dire of times! We've always been a chapter that operates by command and I've always advocated senior leaders to provide us with answers during tough times.

Romulus, dont be so overzealous to step into leadership. You know this isn't going to be decided.with an election. It's going to be decided the way we've always done it by way of inner circle. You can have the backing of a billion black templars, Disciples of Caliban and whomever wants to back who. But its the Dark Angel leadership that will decide who succeeds Dern.

It was simply to be done with a back up if all senior leadership had left. If the Grand Master wishes to take the reigns then by all means.

I wasn't going to just do nothing while this all unfolded.

[CruciasNZ]

Hey guys,

There's a post for what you're discussing, make your opinion count where it will be noticed for what it is. Good luck to whoever eventually gets the job.

Edit: Link working now, Derp! -> Linky