About Reveille

[S'mon]

nothing is so simple and cut and dry as saying that someone in need of help would simply say "help me".

(1) I didn't say that. You seem to be conflating "needs help" with "a cry for help". By your standard almost any behaviour could be called "a cry for help" and there's no way to say it's not.

(2) I suffer from depression myself. So do a lot of people. Most people deal with it without hurting others.

 

[Jdvn1]

As someone who was originally concerned for Fru, thank you for bringing this to our attention, PC.

I wish him the best, and hope he is able to move on.

 

[wingsandsword]

Without disclosing things that Rev hasn't given me permission to state in the public, all I could say is that its my conclusion that the coma hoax was definitely a cry for help aimed at seeing, ironically, if he would be "missed" by the community if something happened to him (my words not his). Unfortunately, for him, as a result of discovering it was a hoax, we now know.

Well, judging from the replies when people thought he was in a coma and maybe dying, the old Rev we thought we knew would have been deeply and dearly missed. . .

However by it being revealed what kind of deception and manipulation had been in play for so long tainted much of that "you'll be missed" feeling. It certainly did not destroy it, as this thread has shown, but it's, very sadly, put a taint on missing him to know the deceptions that he had engaged in against us.

 

[talien]

Having dealt with this in my 15 years as an administrator on RetroMUD, and my thesis on anonymity proving that it does indeed provoke "disinhibitive behavior," I fully support the staff's decision to ban Reveille. Community is a delicate, ephemeral thing, and the goodwill that is part of ENWorld's culture was earned through careful stewardship and rules enforcement.

Rev's blatant manipulation of the ENWorld community is a violation of that stewardship. In essence, a predator infiltrated the board's ranks. It is entirely within the staff's rights to ban him. In fact, it's a very important part of protecting the community and reinforcing that this is a safe place to express personal details about oneself. As others have pointed out, failure to defend the community brings into question everyone else posting details about themselves. ENWorld was forced to draw a line and I'm glad it did.

In my experience, this will not curb Rev's behavior one iota. The griefing players we had who concocted entire false lives/tragedies for themselves on RetroMUD never go away. They come back in a different form. In fact, there seems to be a pathological NEED for them to come back. They crave attention, and a ban doesn't stop that behavior. I feel that the ban was as much to reinforce the integrity of ENWorld as it was to punish Rev.

One final caveat: It's a lot easier to say that someone was mentally unbalanced, because it makes everyone who felt betrayed by him feel better. Being deceived by a mentally ill person is something we can all sympathize with, but being duped by a charlatan makes us feel dumb. And nobody likes to feel dumb.

 

[S'mon]

Well said, Mike.

 

[Rel]

Thank you for your elaboration on this. I was worried about Rel, but because there was a long-term pattern to his deceptions, my worry had subsided.

I'm OK!

I was just gone camping for a couple days with my daughter. I wasn't in a coma or anything.

EDIT: I've now experienced two instances of this sort of deception. First was Del over at CM faking his death as a not-funny-at-all April Fools joke (as a bonus it wasn't on April 1st) and now Rev. What I'm wondering is why does ever deceitful conniver have to have a username so close to mine?

I dunno. If I was you, I'd keep an eye on me.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I dunno. If I was you, I'd keep an eye on me.

Hah, you just want to trick us, right?! I will definitely not keep an eye on you!

 

[billd91]

I dunno. If I was you, I'd keep an eye on me.

Well, put up your address. We'll start up the rotation here and I'm sure we can have someone staking out your place and stalking you by dinner time.

 

[Roman]

I'm OK!

I was just gone camping for a couple days with my daughter. I wasn't in a coma or anything.

EDIT: I've now experienced two instances of this sort of deception. First was Del over at CM faking his death as a not-funny-at-all April Fools joke (as a bonus it wasn't on April 1st) and now Rev. What I'm wondering is why does ever deceitful conniver have to have a username so close to mine?

I dunno. If I was you, I'd keep an eye on me.

Sorry about that! I meant Rev of course!

 

[Roman]

So folks know -- instead of penalizing everyone via a time-consuming manhunt for alternate accounts, we'll just deal with problems should they arise.

I want to commend you on the sensible approach you are taking on this issue. Making the actual rules stricter would merely inconveniance users and scammers could still bypass it - best to carry on relying on trust despite what has happened and dealing with breaches of trust on an individual basis like you are doing! Kudos!