NEWS/OPINION — The FAQ & Information. What are town halls?

“These threads are a place for the community and user base to discuss policy, make suggestions for the wiki, air complaints, or any other form of commentary that anyone should wish to make. All posts in the town halls will be seen by and responded to by staff… The main purpose is to be a more direct route for talking to staff — additionally, it is going to make it easier for current-events talk to happen[.]”

— Taylor_itkin

It has taken a year for staff to come around to the idea of, organize, and prepare for these town halls. These were first proposed in May 2020 at the height of the Bright and “pedo-staff” scandal as part of the shotgun-style effort to fix staff’s plummeting credibility. They moved quick then.

So what took so long now?

The tone and marketing surrounding the town halls have changed in that year. It all began frantically. With a pep in their step. As if punted by a boot.

AdminBright, of Dr. Bright fame (honestly, who changes their username to reflect their promotion??), had just been told to (dis)gracefully step down. The forced resignation was the only way out. To save face; not for Bright’s sake I suspect… (despite a wall of fawning adoration — even by staff, with Mann once remarking in response to Bright’s history of refusing admission to transgender people for being transgender that “You just have to forgive Bright… he means no harm!”)… no, no, for the sake of the Wiki.

Oh I’m sorry. That sounded noble. Heroic even. Let me try again:

For the sake of the brand.

Staff acquiesced to the growing outcry over other long-time staffers and ruling class members who were even more reckless, and left records of themselves erotic roleplaying very inappropriately with underage girls in the community’s more hushed channels. The evidence was leaked onto places like KiwiFarms, staff’s sworn enemy.

SCP staff pretended to care. They simultaneously decried the info and its platforms but acted on the fallout frenetically too. They reshuffled their anti-harassment teams, professionally dodging sorely needed staff bans. They dished out long-overdue bans where able for offenses minuscule in comparison to not only what the unpunished of them had done, but in comparison to what they knowingly harbored and tolerated in others of their ilk, feigning ignorance.

But not a peep for Dr. Bright. In fact, staff still peddle his character and image to promote themselves on their social media.

Whistleblowers of the sexual abuse were censored and banned. Staff hawked their platforms and dealt with anything compromising. Mann, the de facto leader and ultimate arbiter of disciplinary matters, flexed his politician’s game. They did everything but confess that they knew.

So there was a lot that they were reacting to when they had the bright (ha!) idea for the town halls.

To demonstrate the tonal shift, here’s an earlier take from that time, and from the same individual, Taylor_itkin; one year ago when the idea was just taking shape, and in less makeup.

“The Problem: A lot of the discontent amongst the userbase in terms of staff and how staff functions is due to a fundamental lack of understanding, even with the transparency of O5, as we are inherently separated from the general user in our community just by being staff. At the end of the day, we work for the users and want to make sure that our users and contributors feel we aren’t doing things or enacting policies without taking their site experience into consideration.” — Taylor_itkin

The most tremendous political misstep here is to take the comprehensive failure of staff to take seriously the sexual harassment cases against their own members until the willful blindness threatened to wreck them, and frame it as a mere structural or logistical disconnect with the users. As simply a matter of the users not being able to help determine & enact policies, as if anyone should need help deciding whether or not to act on supported and repeated claims of sexually deviant and illegal activity.

By this point (in this isolated incident, among many) they had lost all credibility as leaders. Leaders are there to act in necessary ways when necessity arises. They are selected due to a presumed ability to be voices independent of their herd. They cowered, twice, however — both times the priority being the minimum action necessary to preserve their standing. The fact that staff put so much reform into how users can safely report abuse and harassment cases which involve staff betrays the gravitational consciousness they had of their failure as leaders.

There are a few other things that stick out.

First, the claim that being staff inherently separates them from the community isn’t challenged or commented further upon. I imagine some more down-to-Earth staffers would disagree. This sort of auto-elevation isn’t really a given in other communities. If there is something innate to staff that puts them at a distance, it’s an undue sense of superiority that is passed down like a blood-money inheritance from poor role models to poor role models in training.

Also notice that the reason attributed to the discontent for staff is “a fundamental lack of understanding”. On whose part? Oh. On the part of the users. All you really need to see, a bit of a Machiavellian slip. It’s not that staff invited the discontent by poor choices. Can’t be.

A majority of staff discussion on this page seems to be preoccupied with the vulnerability that a town hall would mean for them. Two of staff here opine that O5 Command, the staff’s bureaucratic theater, should already be enough transparency for the people, that SCP users are more privileged than those in other fanbases because of it.

Is that so? Here’s what a former staff member, another rogue agent from the ranks, said about the O5 Command forum:

“The 05command forums are usually not genuine, real-time discussion, especially with harassment issues because saying the wrong thing on the record could cause trouble for staff. The staff commenting are usually talking to each other about what to say before they say it. 05 is a performative area where they turn their private brainstorming (typically from staff IRC channels like #site67) into public announcements, which I think is important to note with creepy shit like this.” — Kiwi-Identified Cow, aka Cyantreuse, former SCP staff

Read that again keeping it in mind that the whole reason the town halls were proposed was harassment issues. It’s why staff have re-imagined their reporting of harassment cases, patting themselves on the back and “surprised” they didn’t do this sooner, and now include more than just the non-descriptions that we are used to (like the classics: “Banned for offsite activity” “Banned for being a negative-value user” or “Multiple harassment cases”). Non-descriptions that served a dual purpose.

Maybe the anti-harassment team got off to a bad start entirely when you had the most notorious of the sexual groomers leading it. Maybe it is still broken when they can’t resist banning someone because they went to great lengths to call out pedophilia on the site (Dr. Bright’s). Maybe it is a giant hypocrisy when this:

“____ has been permanently banned following multiple independent reports of offsite abusive toxicity. The size and scope of said behaviors were to such an extent that the user’s continued presence on the site and in the greater community is considered an active detriment to the user base and the wiki as a whole.”

… can apply to any old user but somehow doesn’t apply to Dr. Bright et al.

The most discussion on this earlier take is about the potential for “bad actors” to make staffers look bad, and how to front-run that. Nearly everyone mentions it, starting with Taylor:

“Bad-faith actors might try to use these Q&A sessions to propagate some fake narrative of how staff has operated or abused their power. This is easy to handle — we correct them, explain what happened, and give them the boot if they keep acting out.” — Taylor_itkin

(^ Notice that it must be a “fake” narrative. Can’t possibly be a real narrative about how staff has abused their power. The default fix for anything else is a “correction” and a ban.)

“1) It is inevitable, with the transparency of O5, that staff messing up will be noticed by the wider public. This brings up the chance that these staff members will be subjected to the limelight during town hall meetings, where people will bring up records or logs of misdemeanors committed by said member. While this could almost certainly be seen as deliberately attempting to provoke a hostile response out of staff, if people are able to provide logs or some other evidence, regardless of whether they are true or not, it gives off an air of legitimacy — to the point where others will want and expect us to answer said questioning before continuing.

(^ No, not a deliberate attempt to provoke staff, they aren’t baboons behind some glass at a zoo, are they? Maybe, just maybe, it would be an attempt to call someone out on their behavior that they clearly are incapable of comprehending as bad. Maybe there’s a good reason staff would respond in a hostile manner. “… regardless of whether they are true or not”. “.. an air of legitimacy.” Oof!)

While Taylor touched upon this with the “bad faith actors” point, not everyone is malicious; some of the people who will be asking these questions are most likely influenced by those around them, and therefore and [sic] legitimately concerned. I’d like to know how we would address not only targeted provocation as well as where we draw the line between misguided-but-concerned and concern-troll.”

(^ This individual does not leave room for “rightfully concerned”. Just “misguided” or a troll. “Not everyone is awful for questioning our morals; some are just infected with others’ lies!”)

“2) This is less of a concern and more of a “I hope” scenario: I’d like for small training sessions to be conducted, where staff in general are tutored on maintaining their calm during these town hall meetings, if only so we don’t ruin our own standing by exploding in front of a cheeky audience. While I can’t name a specific instance where lashing out without cause has actually happened, I do recognize that the flood of newbies means our patience is wearing thin, and we may not always be able to reign in our emotions.” —N_Aepic_Fael

(^ The audience is “cheeky”. Not… I don’t know, “fed up”. Or “pissed off”.)

Most of us interested enough in this world to be reading this post can absolutely think of “a specific instance where [staff] lashing out without cause has actually happened… ruining our own standing by exploding”; the mass-banning in the wake of the 2018 Summer Logo Fiasco, as one example, where staff was given the order to ban people if they disagreed with their political views. See here for a full leak of super secret staff chat logs about just how much they lashed out without a cause, and regretted it. Or, if you don’t want to read tens of thousands of lines of internal bickering, self-hate, and self-loathing, just read the highlights.

So why in the world would staff lose their cool and let their emotions get to them? Why is that a concern here? That staff won’t be able to reign in their emotions and might let their thin patience get the better of them — especially if there’s not one specific instance that can be thought of where that’s happened?

I think you get the gist. It’s so bad in its attempted ignorance that it curls the toes to read. The extent to which they are dishonest about this is the extent to which we can read in their guilt. Let’s move on.

There’s a lot of discussion about scripting responses beforehand to expected, difficult questions. (Again, why oh why would they anticipate these?)

“For the Q&A sessions, we’d need to prevent staff dogpiles or people tripping over themselves to answer questions. We would organize ahead of time to pick specific spokespeople to answer questions on each policy, and then designate spokespeople for each branch of staff operation to handle Q&A pertaining to their area of expertise.” — Taylor_itkin

“…implementing town hall meetings could end poorly if you have staff slipping up and be confrontational or lashing out repeatedly during them, not the least of which is because there will inevitably be people acting in bad faith. It’s better to learn how to deal with said people beforehand than have to try and figure it out on the fly.” — Decibelles

(^ You think Decibelles is having PTSD flashbacks to Summer 2018?)

“If staff are going to take official positions on controversies and events, it seems like those should be made publically prior to these meetings so that any discussion could be linked to those statements. This would allow staff to generate tactful responses to controversies without having to create them “on the fly” during the meetings, and to not spend an inordinate amount of time responding to the same questions.” — Nagiros

(^ “Tactful”.)

“If users want to talk about these official positions (or bring up info that wasn’t covered in the official statements) then that can obviously be allowed. Although I guess that begs the question of whether staff are obligated to make statements about every controversy and event which could feasibly come up.” — UraniumEmpire

“Thirding this. Bad-faith actors, generally, don’t want to discuss : what they want is generally spread their shit, get away with it and let the people doubt about us.” — The Pighead

Site users getting away with spreading the shit that makes people doubt staff… they were afraid of further reputational heat & damage. And, the coup de grâce, if it was any doubt…

“Fourthing.” — AdminBright

🤣

Thus we can start to glean that perhaps the town halls are not for the best interest of the users, as stated in the OP. This was a risk/reward assessment over how best to salvage their image. (We will revisit time and time again in this blog how it cannot be true that SCP staff believe — both at the highest positions of their hierarchy and as a composite — that they are subjugated to and there for the site’s users.

Their master is their brand.

So it’s no wonder that the staff froth the propaganda that KiwiFarms is filled with alt-right bigots who are conspiracy theorists, hell-bent on seeing SCP die. They can’t control anything there. They’ve tried.

It’s also no wonder why they would want to capitulate to a dispersing pressure and host a “free speech” forum of their own, off-brand as it is. One that they can set the rules for, enforce those rules by threat of ban, and shut down after two-weeks at a time; but that also can be operated on demand and at a moment’s notice for “additional sessions should the necessity arise”.

Behind the sweet words that introduce this post is a very bad breath. Taken in view of the self-preservation that we have learned is not ever too far from staff’s power levers, the town halls can be seen as a drama overflow valve, meant to help centralize dissent in perfect view; with the perks of microscopy, a direct means of allaying rumors or drama, and — above all — more control.

The town halls are marketed to the community as a way to facilitate meaningful and progress-aimed discussions between them and the self-admittedly disconnected staff, and I don’t doubt that is a good part of it. Part. It’s also a way for staff to throw breadcrumbs in an appeasement attempt, defend their reputation collectively, and reinforce their narrative to a community increasingly unconvinced of their worth. (How much of which ingredient is in the pot is a matter of taste I guess.)

This move is the mirror image of Internet Outreach… instead of infiltrating outside communities to bring them under staff control, this time it’s to insource that discussion that would otherwise need to be controlled.

In looking at the FAQ, we should immediately notice that the staff member who is moderating the town halls — creating the post, introducing the terms and giving basic info — is none other than Taylor_itkin, the staffer whose words introduced this post and who drafted that proposal page a year ago.

Taylor was given a disciplinary slap on the wrist for harassing an individual off-site just days ago, and just after he suspended his duties and vanished for a vacation. According to the disciplinary thread, he and another staff member “dogpiled” an individual and “engaged and targeted that user with insults and subjected them to the same unsubstantiated accusations that others were perpetuating.” Reputedly, they thought the user was a participant in the KiwiFarms thread! 👏

Unsurprisingly, Taylor (or “Tay” as he refers to himself as) has a shaded history as staff. He is accused of some pretty specific stuff, and has been repeatedly promoted despite it. He also joined Site-12, the site’s secret NSFW chat, when he was underage and knew that was a no-no. Twice. He was sent into the RPC Discord when it was created to spy on them and rat out anyone who had dual citizenship on SCP, so that they could be banned. (Good dog.)

Lastly, according to an individual confirmed to have been sexually groomed by SCP staffers, “Tay” is the individual tasked with the PR coverage for all this bad exposure. So in drafting the town hall both in proposal and in actuality, he is doing his job here. (Good boy!)

Nice way to start us off.

Going through the FAQ, and forgetting all this backstory, it seems genteel enough. But oh. Oh. Why do you think it was necessary to include and anticipate the following question:

“I don’t want to post publicly, can I ask someone else to post for me?”

Taylor’s answer: “Absolutely.”

The reason is that plenty of people don’t feel safe voicing their honest thoughts. They never have. Same reason why they created the option of reporting harassment cases anonymously, and tried to create a “First Sargent” position.

This introduces the pivotal role of “Staff Liason” in these town halls; essentially someone who acts as body armor so that the questions that will undoubtedly irritate the staff and ruffle cult feathers (staff call this “shit-stirring” in other contexts, a bannable offense) can be outsourced to someone who won’t be punished or ostracized for asking them.

Next question: “Are staff going to be aware of the questions ahead of time and/or are they discussing the answers among themselves?”

The short answer is yes, because they are well aware of the big ones that basically forced them to go forward with these town halls in the first place. Let’s see the official reply:

“No one is going to be aware of any questions ahead of time. It is entirely likely that a lot of the questions will be discussed amongst the staff team before a response is posted — more than anything, we want to make sure whatever answer is given is accurate and up-to-date, so checking with the rest of the team is essential to ensuring that.”

Careful language. These are writers after all. “More than anything” does not only mean it’s opposite here (“less than anything”), but it shows there are many other reasons staff would want to get any response signed off on first.

Next: “Are users free to express controversial opinions or discontent without worry?”

“Dissatisfaction or controversial opinions will never result in reprisal from staff, and staff will step in to prevent users from dogpiling other users if necessary. The only exception is blatant rule violations such as trolling or flaming.”

This may be a new rule for the town halls, but it just isn’t true. Never has been. This was not true when I expressed dissatisfaction or controversial opinions. Staff joined in the dogpile, in fact. On that note, staff have tried desperately to remove my dissatisfaction and controversial opinion off their site. Multiple times. They even had a big meeting about how they could get away with it in view of the public, well aware of their own rules.

Besides that, O5 is filled with bans for controversial opinions. Here is a decent example, exacerbated by the politics of course, but just the first one in a several-page search result on O5 for the term “shit-stirring”. Here’s another good one. The fact is that dissatisfaction or a controversial opinion absolutely can result in reprisal from staff. Staff will usually be the ones dogpiling. They will step in to thwart the expression of the opinion, not to protect the user. (Hilarious to note that “dogpiling” is the exact term used in Taylor’s slap-on-the-wrist thread to describe his actions.)

Next: “Are staff going to actually listen to concerns and change policy based on it?”

“Yes, we are 100% going to listen. While it cannot be promised that everything brought up will result in changes to policy, you will at the very least be given explanation as to why it did not. Staff are going to be making a concerted effort to address any and all concerns brought up by users to ensure that they are made comfortable, at the very least.”

I’d add “this time, we swear this time” to the end of the first sentence, and strike through “at the very least” at the end, and that is the gist here. It’s 100% about reducing the internal temperature and controversy, 0% about the right thing, or listening to users for any measure farther than that.

Next: “Are users allowed to challenge/further discuss the given answers by staff?”

“Yes, but please keep it civil. All discussion in the town halls still needs to follow the site rules.”

The site rules that, as we will see someone calls them out on, staff do not follow. Again, as with so many of these, the presence of the question, the need to clarify these points to begin with, speaks volumes.

The FAQ page’s comments are fun too. Questions that staff may have not thought to include. Like the first and most obvious question: “Why are town halls a thing when we already have them by a different name?”

I hope this post has supplied the reader with the answer to that.

© Lack of Lepers, 2021