Farewell

[Ryan]

I have officially been harassed out of the community. Goodbye, Giant's Lair.


I am not resigning, to be clear. I have not resigned. I have been demoted, with the following reason:

Spoiler: Demoted for Why?

Fiz says I am not portraying the values this community is committing to. What are those values?


A ton of Jew Hate.


I don't mean Israel hate, by the way. I mean actual, real Jew Hate.


Here are several examples.

Spoiler: From moderator, coriander

Spoiler: From Lead Admin Muffinman

Spoiler: From Former Moderator, Pokeben10

And see my staff app. I discuss a lot of the very old, very Jewish phrase, "Am Israel Chai," which translates (literally) to Israel Lives. Israel, is a character from the Torah that us Jews get our name from. Jew is a new word, before that, we were just called Israel. We still call ourselves Israel in our daily prayers, because we are fucking Israel. The modern State of Israel is a country, and uses a different phrase in hebrew to describe it: HaAretz, or Eretz Yisrael.

Spoiler: From recently banned users who spewed hateful shit constantly

For my entire staff tenure I have had to deal with constant bullshit blows from fellow staff members and community members. As a Jew, of course I believe Israel has a right to exist. That's been the only public take I have shared. A part of this was intentional - I will not subject myself to some kind of litmus test by simply stating that a country that has existed should continue to exist. I shouldn't have to say "Oh yeah, Israel is a country. It exists. Oh, and Israel should leave the West Bank immediately. And Israel needs to stop occupying Gaza too. Oh, and Israel also needs to get rid of their fuckass prime minister, and the insane political leaders like Ben Gvir (fuck ben gvir)." Those are beliefs I do hold, by the way. Nobody really asked, they just kinda assumed that I want innocent kids to get blown to bits or something.


Hateful Content and wishing death upon innocent people:

Spoiler: Former Moderator, ParkRangerMoon

Spoiler: Tiefling Lesbian

This user has just kind of generally posted crazy harassing shit to me for a while. Here is one example, where the user set their discord status to some insane hateful shit. It's written in completely broken fuck ass hebrew, but I believe they mean to say "There are no Israeli victims," quite a fucking horrible thing to say.

I then went into their direct messages, and asked them a few times about it. They just kinda trolled and dodged the question or whatever, so I gave up. Of course, I took no moderator action against them for their discord status since that isn't a thing we police much here in Giant's Lair, but they need to hear that this sort of thing isn't okay to say. Even if you hate Israel, and Israelis, you cannot say that the innocent children in Israel that die aren't victims. This is hate speach.

Spoiler: Some More Hateful Conduct, that some users were COI'd for.

Spoiler: Some batshit insane things Pokeben has said to me

I also want to point out some very important things I've been directly told by Admin+ to justify why I do what I do:


I don't have screenshots of it because it's in staff channels and I'm not staff anymore, but at some point I was told multiple times to not do any staff action against people for the hateful content I mentioned above. I was told to instead just say something like, "Wow, that's really fucked up that you'd think that," and other things. Just like I did with Tiefling Lesbian.


The owner of the community also directly told me,

Spoiler: you don't gotta take that Zionist shit from pokeben btw

But apparently, I am supposed to just take the bullshit all the time, as evident from demoting me.


If it's not the above bolded values, then:

What are the values this community is committing to?

[Reposted with permission from Noctorious.]

 

[Noctorious]

I'm sorry to see this demotion come to pass and the feelings that have accompanied it.This is the most disappointing part of current staff culture that is a relic of the past:

I don't have screenshots of it because it's in staff channels and I'm not staff anymore, but at some point I was told multiple times to not do any staff action against people for the hateful content I mentioned above. I was told to instead just say something like, "Wow, that's really fucked up that you'd think that," and other things. Just like I did with Tiefling Lesbian.

As I said in our DM conversation we had, I don't agree with the 'rise above' mentality that came when almost all interactions were on the TTT server and temporary. Now that discord and social interactions are a much more major part of the community, staff should not feel afraid to ask for support from their own fellow staff or feel nothing will come of it when it comes to feeling bullied or harassed. To be clear, I did not approve or like the way the situation with tiefling was handled but I understand why the other avenues you could/should have taken felt blocked off to you.

Even with this farewell the responses from community and staff are disappointing. The people are not always represented by the actions of their leaders or military, and if as you said is true that nobody asked directly if you supported the actions of the leadership of Isreal then big assumptions were made.

 

[tiefling lesbian]

me when i triple down on making shit up because i can't read after it's already been disproven

 

[ari]

people are allowed to not like zionism or zionistic views, sorry to inform you

This user has just kind of generally posted crazy harassing shit to me for a while. Here is one example, where the user set their discord status to some insane hateful shit. It's written in completely broken fuck ass hebrew, but I believe they mean to say "There are no Israeli victims," quite a fucking horrible thing to say.



I then went into their direct messages, and asked them a few times about it. They just kinda trolled and dodged the question or whatever, so I gave up. Of course, I took no moderator action against them for their discord status since that isn't a thing we police much here in Giant's Lair, but they need to hear that this sort of thing isn't okay to say. Even if you hate Israel, and Israelis, you cannot say that the innocent children in Israel that die aren't victims. This is hate speach.

to defend tiefling though, i think it was a little weird for you to have this conversation with her while barely having interacted w/ her (your only real interacts with her were like the day before you messaged her)
your discord status is also just a personal space. ur not obligated to have someone explain or justify it to you lol, especially someone you barely interact with (or just in general as a staff member at the time)

 

[ari]

muffin catching strays is a little weird too when he's literally said things like:

<-unsupportive of the chant btw

ctrl f'ing and searching the word "jew" just to paint people negatively is SUCH a bad way to approach your post! :/

 

[anna]

I think something we all need to consider when we are involved in groups like this is; we are the main character of our own stories. We are merely NPC's in everyone elses.

There is nothing wrong with having strong beliefs, stances and opinions. There is nothing wrong with engaing in ways that are educational, empathetic and with good faith. There is nothing wrong with that at all. There is something wrong when you continue to engage with material that other people say, interpreting it as a dig against you specifically instead of what it is. Their own strong belief, stance and opinion. People are entitled to make a statement, to share their opinions and for it not to be taken as a constant attack on you. I cannot ignore that there have certainly been instances where people have behaved awfully and for that I am sorry. There have been times where others have engaged in conversations with the intention of being triggering and trying to get a rise. Ignoring that aspect would make me look like a hypocrit and I am sorry that you did not feel empowered and supported in instances where it was genuinely harassment.

In saying that however, there have certainly been conversations in which you inserted yourself to defend your opinions when you yourself were not the target. There have been many occasions where you have been antagonistic, and aggressive, calling people out publically in what came across in almost a "gotcha" way. And you can say that was not the intention at all, and that may very well be the case, but the verbage and way you engaged certainly came across that way. I am not typing here to start a long list of evidence, this is not the time or place. However; it would be remiss not to acknowledge that you too were at fault at times. A prime example having already been shown above. This consistent engagement in a negative way is the issue and while we are trying to combat it across the board, that does mean we have to hold staff accountable too (and we have been trying our best to be objective in that).

The values we are comitting to is being a place where people can engage in productive conversations. Where opinions can be shared in non inflamatory ways. We want this to be a place people enjoy coming to and are not constantly worrying about bullshit. This requires everyone to engage empathetcially and I think this will take some time to reflect appropriately. It means coming here with the understanding that the 1000+ people around will not have the same opinion as me and they can put that aside and still engage with everyone kindly. People have engaged in ways that were not in line with what we want to see 100% and went unchecked for an extended period of time. This is what we are working on, but, in working on it we need to put our money where our mouth is so to speak. That means no matter who you are, what time you have put here, the money you have sunk in, if you are just a member or any level of staff, you will be held to the general standard at the very least.

 

[Siddo]

Hello Ryan
I'm sad to see this being how things played out.

I think anna said everything I was going to say, so I'll avoid restating things already said. Save for one addendum;
There is a degree of self-righteousness to your position on the issue and inversely I think it would be disingenuous to deny that you've been disliked or baited. But this is another time where you've had a choice between mending fences or lashing out - and to me, this reads like the latter - again. And from what I can understand from fizward's messages to you that you shared, this was essentially the crux of his decision. That between two options, you chose the antagonizing one with some level of consistency. That choice exists independently of others antagonizing you, in my view. We can't ever choose what others do to us, but we can choose what we do unto others.

Which leads me to;
Naming-and-shaming other people of this community or posting discord snippets either with or without context, isn't a kind or good thing. A post like this is usually a really good time to acknowledge your own faults, where you've gone wrong, where you could do better - to commit to being better. If you see no fault in yourself, if you instead feel indignant - or feel vindicated or justified in your actions, I cannot and do not want to take that from you. Instead I'll let you know that all it does is further divide people, it accomplishes nothing good in the long run. It sows more conflict and what you reap is encouraging the people clowning around. I think it'd be good for you to take a step away for tonight - for a day or two even - and then come back when your emotions related to the demotion have settled a bit. Look at what you've done, and see what you feel with the famously 20/20 vision of hindsight.

I think, perhaps naively, that an earnest conversation or two could've done much here. For instance your conversation with tiefling, you came in hot and heavy, badgering a question, trying to make her explain and defend something you had already interpreted as hateful. That conversation was never going to be a positive one unless tiefling showed extraordinary social grace. It's setting yourself up for failure and will only make people uncomfortable around you.

If you choose to leave, I hope you find peace on your journey.
Choose to be kind, even when the world is cruel <3

 

[CelDamage]

Sorry to see you resign nobody was a better trans ally than you

 

[Chou]

Sorry to see you resign nobody was a better trans ally than you

 

[Ryan]

me when i triple down on making shit up because i can't read after it's already been disproven

Thank you for sharing this again. I'm not sure which part of this you are claiming is a lie.

Taking "Am Yisrael Chai" to mean anything other than the Jewish people live is insane. The people of israel is the jews you fucking moron. The State of Israel started in 1948, and this phrase is quite a bit older than that. It's almost like Israel is the guy in the fucking Torah that started our people. The fact that this continues to upset you enough to respond to this thread like 3 times with it is hilarious. This is just another piece of stupid ass Jew hate.

If it's the part, "korbanot yisrael lo", yeah that literally translates to "victims israel no" in fuckass broken ass hebrew. You didn't use the right negative, you didn't put it in the right place. I'm not sure if you are referring to the State of Israel, or the Jews, since you used hebrew and the more common way to refer to the State of Israel is "haaretz" (the land). If you meant to say, "The Jews", fuck you, I hope you get banned. If you meant to say The State of Israel - that's a really fucked up thing to say. I'll triple and quadrouple down on that. The State of Israel actually does have a ton of Israelis who are victims in this stupid war. There's a ton of children who die. There's a ton of non Jewish arab Israelis who get discriminated against. There's also the Druze Israelis, who face a lot of discrimination from the surrounding countries. Those people are certainly victims, and denying that is a terrible thing to say. I will double and triple down on this every time you say it. It's a horrible thing to say.

 

[Ryan]

muffin catching strays is a little weird too when he's literally said things like:

View attachment 1158View attachment 1159 <-unsupportive of the chant btw

ctrl f'ing and searching the word "jew" just to paint people negatively is SUCH a bad way to approach your post! :/

I put that specific post in there because it absolutely was a piece of jew hate. Muffinman is not a jew hater, he's just a regular guy who said something incredibly Jew-hatey. The State of Israel cannot possibly make Jews look bad. The Vatican cannot possibly make Christians look bad. Saudi Arabia cannot possibly make Muslims look bad. Those are modern nations, and their actions do not reflect an entire group of completely disconnected people. It's a very common shitty thing to say that Bibi and the State of Israel is a bad look for the Jews. And it's still Jew Hate to say that.

 

[tiefling lesbian]

Thank you for sharing this again. I'm not sure which part of this you are claiming is a lie.

Taking "Am Yisrael Chai" to mean anything other than the Jewish people live is insane. The people of israel is the jews you fucking moron. The State of Israel started in 1948, and this phrase is quite a bit older than that. It's almost like Israel is the guy in the fucking Torah that started our people. The fact that this continues to upset you enough to respond to this thread like 3 times with it is hilarious. This is just another piece of stupid ass Jew hate.

If it's the part, "korbanot yisrael lo", yeah that literally translates to "victims israel no" in fuckass broken ass hebrew. You didn't use the right negative, you didn't put it in the right place. I'm not sure if you are referring to the State of Israel, or the Jews, since you used hebrew and the more common way to refer to the State of Israel is "haaretz" (the land). If you meant to say, "The Jews", fuck you, I hope you get banned. If you meant to say The State of Israel - that's a really fucked up thing to say. I'll triple and quadrouple down on that. The State of Israel actually does have a ton of Israelis who are victims in this stupid war. There's a ton of children who die. There's a ton of non Jewish arab Israelis who get discriminated against. There's also the Druze Israelis, who face a lot of discrimination from the surrounding countries. Those people are certainly victims, and denying that is a terrible thing to say. I will double and triple down on this every time you say it. It's a horrible thing to say.

it doesn't feel like i'm the one upset in this exchange if i'm honest
it also seems like you're still struggling with basic reading comprehension

 

[Chou]

I put that specific post in there because it absolutely was a piece of jew hate. Muffinman is not a jew hater, he's just a regular guy who said something incredibly Jew-hatey. The State of Israel cannot possibly make Jews look bad. The Vatican cannot possibly make Christians look bad. Saudi Arabia cannot possibly make Muslims look bad. Those are modern nations, and their actions do not reflect an entire group of completely disconnected people. It's a very common shitty thing to say that Bibi and the State of Israel is a bad look for the Jews. And it's still Jew Hate to say that.

The triple down is crazy

 

[tiefling lesbian]

sorry it's only just now occurred to me that the reason you're struggling so hard to understand what the phrase means is because you're so ignorant to anything outside your zionist worldview that you read "victims of israel" and somehow assume it means victims who are israeli and not victims of israel's war crimes

 

[Ryan]

The values we are comitting to is being a place where people can engage in productive conversations. Where opinions can be shared in non inflamatory ways. We want this to be a place people enjoy coming to and are not constantly worrying about bullshit. This requires everyone to engage empathetcially and I think this will take some time to reflect appropriately. It means coming here with the understanding that the 1000+ people around will not have the same opinion as me and they can put that aside and still engage with everyone kindly. People have engaged in ways that were not in line with what we want to see 100% and went unchecked for an extended period of time. This is what we are working on, but, in working on it we need to put our money where our mouth is so to speak. That means no matter who you are, what time you have put here, the money you have sunk in, if you are just a member or any level of staff, you will be held to the general standard at the very least.

If you really think I don't represent those values, then who the hell do you think I am?
What are those productive conversations? Talking about the death of an entire country? Talking about how the Jerusalem Post is the Jewish Post, an absolutely batshit insane thing to say, and is extraordinarily inflammatory and is absolutely bullshit.

In saying that however, there have certainly been conversations in which you inserted yourself to defend your opinions when you yourself were not the target. There have been many occasions where you have been antagonistic, and aggressive, calling people out publically in what came across in almost a "gotcha" way. And you can say that was not the intention at all, and that may very well be the case, but the verbage and way you engaged certainly came across that way. I am not typing here to start a long list of evidence, this is not the time or place. However; it would be remiss not to acknowledge that you too were at fault at times. A prime example having already been shown above. This consistent engagement in a negative way is the issue and while we are trying to combat it across the board, that does mean we have to hold staff accountable too (and we have been trying our best to be objective in that).

I stand up for what I believe in every day, and will continue to do so. Just because I am not the target of something by the way, doesn't make what someone is doing okay or any less wrong. I will continue to stand up for what I believe in. I will continue to believe that saying that an entire country's worth of people should be dead is a fucking terrible thing to say. I don't care if that country is Israel, Palestine, America, Canada, Australia, or whatever the fuck else. Innocent people don't deserve to die.

There is nothing wrong with engaing in ways that are educational, empathetic and with good faith.

And finally, I do not need to engage in ways that are educational with people who hate Jews. You do not need to empathetic with people who wish death upon an entire country. As staff members, we should have banned people long ago who say such ridiculous things.

Why was ParkRangerMoon allowed to make his insane stab at me that I want Iranian kids to die or something? That's fucking wild. I've been dealing with direct bullshit ass comments like that for a few months, and it's insane.

I couldn't even talk about how American coffee sucks, and how other countries, like Israel, do coffee way better without some people getting really fucking pissed off about it.

I am not the problem. I haven't made any attempt to antagonize anyone. The only thing I have done is make the really bold claim that wishing death upon an entire country's worth of people is wrong, and will always be wrong.

 

[Ryan]

sorry it's only just now occurred to me that the reason you're struggling so hard to understand what the phrase means is because you're so ignorant to anything outside your zionist worldview that you read "victims of israel" and somehow assume it means victims who are israeli and not victims of israel's war crimes

Why didn't you just say that? That's like the whole reason I asked in your direct messages what your discord status says?

Like it's not my fault you wrote bad unintelligible Hebrew. You wrote some gibberish. Some gobbledygook. If you had meant what you had said, you deserve to be told that is a horrible thing to say.

If you meant something else, then you deserve to be told "Hey what you actually said is something kinda cursed, I think what you wanna say is something else,"

Neither of which deserves any kind of moderator action, because we don't police discord status' in Giants Liar.

But you're gosh darn right that if you had meant to say that innocent israelis aren't victims, that would be a horrible thing to say.

But of course, if what you're saying now is what you meant to say, that's based

 

[tiefling lesbian]

Why didn't you just say that? That's like the whole reason I asked in your direct messages what your discord status says?

because i don't owe anything to someone barging into my DMs and it's not my fault that you can't read

 

[Ryan]

Sorry to see you resign nobody was a better trans ally than you

What's with this weird ass post from former admin CelDamage? I am a trans ally, why do you people have such a hard time accepting that?

I don't care how loud I have to be or how insane I have to shout it, but trans rights are human rights.

What's your fucking problem? Why do people on this server have a problem with me saying that?

Y'all are really kinda just mean lol.

 

[CelDamage]

What's with this weird ass post from former admin CelDamage? I am a trans ally, why do you people have such a hard time accepting that?

I don't care how loud I have to be or how insane I have to shout it, but trans rights are human rights.

What's your fucking problem? Why do people on this server have a problem with me saying that?

Y'all are really kinda just mean lol.

Are we mean? Or are you just a little coddled crybaby that constantly hid behind the fact that our community didn't know how exactly to react when war broke out and political tensions were high. I wish we took the based route and demoted your ass long ago when we first saw that you were an instigating little cunt that hides behind labels and cries "oh anti-semite" every time someone criticized Benny. You are a fake trans ally too, so go scurry back to your little hole with your complete lack of friends. Not a single person will stand up to defend you, you are a pathetic little worm and now that you've been cornered all you can do is cry and dumb react people.

 

[Ryan]

Are we mean? Or are you just a little coddled crybaby that constantly hid behind the fact that our community didn't know how exactly to react when war broke out and political tensions were high. I wish we took the based route and demoted your ass long ago when we first saw that you were an instigating little cunt that hides behind labels and cries "oh anti-semite" every time someone criticized Benny. You are a fake trans ally too, so go scurry back to your little hole with your complete lack of friends. Not a single person will stand up to defend you, you are a pathetic little worm and now that you've been cornered all you can do is cry and dumb react people.

lkj;afljkasdljk;agsdjlnkasgldkh;jsgadl;kjasgljkd

did you read anything i said???

I said I don't like Netanyahu? What part of me saying that I hate that guy makes you think I like him? Plenty of people criticized Benny all the time I literally don't care about that. I have never cried "anti-semite" anytime he has been criticized. Jesus Christ, you people are so dense and unable to comprehend that my issue is not with people hating the government of Israel. This shit is so funny to me. I just hope you know that this really locks in one of the serious problems with this community - the inability to recognize any sort of nuanced or alternative take. The Israeli government is fucked but the innocent people living inside that country still deserve to live. Like I know it's an insane take to say that innocent people shouldn't die in Giant's Lair in 2026, but I'll say it as many times as I need to.

And how dare you tell me that I am a fake trans ally. I don't care how annoying it is for you to hear: But I support trans rights. I don't care if it upsets you that I support trans people. I specifically pick synagogues to go to that support trans Jews, I specifically don't read books written by trans haters, I do academic research on people's identity in mathematics, including their trans identity. I know it might be really hard to understand, but I am a trans ally. You might not like it, and that's okay - but don't tell me I'm not an ally. I actively modify my life with the expressed purpose of not associating, not supporting, and actively shouting at people who don't think trans people should exist.