Moderator reports

The Starlight system including Chroma, Tailpa, Finn, etc. have been permanently banned from both Discord and the forums. Chroma threatened a staff member in response to a mute for Tailpa. Given this and the system's repeated instances or engagement of disruptive discussion on Discord leading to the mute, we applied the ban to the entire system.

 

(8/8) Update: Chroma ban evaded as Chroma Starlight and then ChromaKey Starlight. The alts have been permanently banned.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Ranger

ohItsMatt has been banned for two weeks for repeated instances of instigating drama, flame baiting, and disruptive discussion.

Elaanel has been permanently banned for multiple accounts of stirring drama and making derogatory claims and arguments.

@Osakahave resigned as chat moderators.

@Ranger is now a Community Manager.

Wisiczka has been permanently banned for stating blatantly racist comments.

Corvus has been permanently banned. They threatened to commit suicide, wrongfully blamed other members they were responsible, provided inappropriately graphic descriptions, and wrongfully encouraged others to aid their attempt.

@September13 and @TurboSimmieare now Half-OPs on the forums.  Drake, Marissa & Shake, and Rusty & Error are Half-OPs on Discord.

Kanade Harassment Report

 

Abstract

 

This report aims to explain the targeted abusive behavior demonstrated by Kanade and her system, also including Mon, Aki, Luna, and others in their system, towards another member and the Tulpa.info staff's handling of this harassment case. Kanade and others in their system have demonstrated harassment towards another member through cyber and emotional abuse. In addition, Kanade and others in their system used gaslighting tactics against this member. As a result of their behavior, they have been permanently banned from Tulpa.info. Given the severity of this case, the moderation response was inefficient. The internal failures of a lack of staff, poor documentation methods, and poor communication are to blame. Solutions to these problems are preventable and include the half-operators division, re-engineering the documentation process, touching base with members when harassment is suspected, and communicating to the appropriate members when action is taken. The goal of this report is to be more transparent on this harassment case and resolve the problems that weakened the team's moderation response.

 

The Abusive Behavior

 

Kanade and others in their system have targeted another member for months through non-consensual roleplay touching, other emotional and cyber abuse, and gaslighting. The non-nonconsensual roleplay touching included repeatedly directing, mentioning, pinging/tagging, and bringing up roleplay touching around the targeted member despite being told to stop repeatedly. The roleplay touching included headpats, hugs, and other forms of touch. Along with the non-consensual roleplay touching, Kanade and others in their system emotionally abused and gaslit the targeted member. All of this behavior violates the Discord Terms of Service and Tulpa.info's guidelines, leading to Kanade and the rest of her system being permanently banned from Tulpa.info.

 

Kanade and other's main form of abuse was through non-consensual roleplay touching. They would repeatedly direct, mention, ping/tag, or bring up roleplay touching around the targeted user. Here is a collection of several screenshots of Kanade and others in their system targeting the other member with roleplay touching. Keep in mind this is likely not every instance of this abuse occurring.

 

 

Kanade and others in their system have been told to stop publicly by the targeted member, other members, and both publicly and privately by staff members. Despite this, their behavior continued and persisted for months. The following screenshots are public examples of both the targeted member, another member, and a staff member telling Kanade and others in their system to stop.

 

 

 

 

In addition to non-consensual roleplay touching, Kanade and others in their system participated in boundary violating behavior. They shamed the target for threatening to draw boundaries, threatened to send unsolicited friend requests, were called out by the targeted user that they were untrustworthy as they violated their DMs, and they explicitly threatened to leak DM content.

 

 

 

 

Kanade and others in their system performed emotional and cyber harassment towards the targeted member that mostly consisted of non-consensual roleplay touching and boundary violating behavior. However, in addition to this, Kanade and others in their system also gaslighting tactics to manipulate the targeted member.

 

Kanade and others in their system used gaslighting techniques towards the target. According to Very Well, gaslighting is a form of manipulation where the abuser paints a false narrative though lying and deceit. Gaslighting is carried out through several tactics including lying, discrediting, minimizing, shifting blame, denying wrongdoing, saying nice things with ill intent, and rewriting history. Kanade and others in their system exhibit several examples of this behavior, as the following screenshots show:

 

 

 

 

 

 

These screenshots in particular emphasize Kanade's inconsistencies:

 

 

 

Lying about not giving the target headpats and their intentions, putting forward a false narrative that the target is the abuser, denying any wrong doing when called out for their abusive behavior, and saying they "like" the target after insulting or demeaning them are the most common tactics used. Keep in mind that this is only revealing publicly available evidence and not all public displays of gaslighting behavior may have been found. Given the repetitive behavior observed and the context of the other abusive behavior, it has been concluded that Kanade and other are responsible for gaslighting the targeted member.

 

For their actions, Kanade and others in their system have been permanently banned from the Tulpa.info Discord server and from the Tulpa.info forums. They have also been reported to Discord's Trust and Safety team.

 

While there were other gaslighting accusations found during the investigation process, there was not enough evidence to support these claims.

 

Moderation Failures and Solutions

 

This harassment case has received a lot of public attention due to frustrations with the moderation process. To address these frustrations, this report aims to go over the internal failures that occurred and discuss solutions to these problems.

 

There were some internal staff failures that lead to the poor handling of this harassment case. One problem was the lack of staff members to adequately address the volume and frequency of cases needing moderation. Another problem was the failure to find documentation of action taken once the harassment case became relevant a few months later. Most of all, inefficient communication between moderation staff and members lead to a poor moderation response: both a failure to check-in with members when harassment was suspected and a failure to notify members of action taken by staff members.

 

Given these issues, there are some obtainable solutions. For the lack of staff issue, the Tulpa.info staff team created the "half-operator" division to distribute the workload and ensure more active staff are available at any given time. The documentation problem can be solved by re-engineering the documentation process used by moderators. Finally, communication issues can be resolved by changing the way staff members communicate with members. If a staff member suspects there could be harassment, they should touch base with the suspected targeted member(s). Additionally, when action is taken during a harassment case, staff members should inform the member targeted by the harassment and any members reporting that action has been taken. While these failures can mostly be resolved by staff members, members should keep in mind that moderators are not always aware of or are hesitant to assume harassment and members who report harassment, suspected or not, are greatly appreciated for speaking up.

 

Kanade and other members of her system have verbally harassed a targeted member for months and the moderation team's handling of this case was poor but preventable. The goal of this report is to be more transparent about this case and ensure a more efficient and dependable moderation response in the future.

A member was banned for not so subtly implying they are engaged with some form of pedophilia.