A Gustav 30 in 30, #9: I Just Wanna Grill for God's Sake

[Gustav 6,428]

 

One of many posts I came across back in the day that featured someone who was really important in one of our affiliate leagues saying negative things about ours in their league's Discord server. Did we deserve it? On some level, yes.

 

 

Most people know that there are things you just shouldn't say anymore. Maybe not everyone agrees what those things are. Maybe some people aren't quite up on what means what and how those meanings have changed. But you've got to be living under a rock if you aren't aware that much of the Western world has fairly recently come to terms with how our choices of words can affect others, intentionally or otherwise. Whether with any intent to hate or not, lots of words are out there that once were generally accepted in most casual settings and have since been looked at with a bit of hesitation. "If I were a member of this group, would I appreciate this word being used in this way?" is a fair question that's made lots of people reflect. If you're over 20 or so, chances are that you've had both the exposure to such things being common and the life experience to question it. I'm sure you know the sorts of things I'm referring to, so I don't think I need to keep explaining. I won't act like I haven't cringed at a thing or two I've said or found funny in the past.

 

I'm also not going to act like the VHL hasn't, either. Talk to any super-old member, and you'll probably hear a whole lot about how the league used to be the Wild West of the Internet. I've read lots of "if you think this is bad, you haven't seen anything"-type comments, and I believe them. I've seen members attack each other personally and drop comments that really aren't OK in general. But by the time I'd joined the league, it was a good bit tamer than it was. And it's a good bit tamer today than it was then, as well.

 

The single most impactful day in the history of "what is and is not OK to say in the VHL," though, came about after I'd joined. October 31, 2019, should have been a really cool day for the VHL. That morning, @Beaviss, who had revolutionized league recruiting and brought it back from the brink of nonexistence by reeling in the great classes of the S60s, was hired into a very deserved role as league commissioner. The VHLM was in the middle of their Cup finals in S68, with a Game 6 slated for that day that could have given the Houston Bulls their first ever championship. And it was Halloween! What's not to like?

 

There was a lot to like in Houston, that's for sure--that Game 6 I'd mentioned went their way. The season was over and the M had their champion. But the story didn't end there--in fact, this one starts at this point because one comment that responded negatively to the game did so with a choice of words that would not be accepted in the VHL today. Though you can find the thread easily, I'm not going to link it for a couple reasons--mainly, what was said initially came from members who I genuinely believe are good people, who apologized for what they said and took accountability to settle their own business. I consider the start of the situation much more their business than mine, so all I think is absolutely necessary to know is that one of those "ways to describe things that used to be common and now are considered less fine to say" made its way onto our forum. It isn't OK now and wasn't OK then--but it's also a matter that has been settled.

 

Houston, interestingly, was helped quite a bit by deadline signings. The VHL had recently rolled out a strengthened affiliate program (the one still in existence today that gives a free 12 TPE to the super important people in our affiliate leagues), and much of the SBA's leadership had created right at the deadline and signed with the same team. With that being Houston, and with a full weekly cap claimable by all these players, all of SBA leadership saw the thread when they won the Cup--and that also meant that all of SBA leadership saw what was said. 

 

At the time, the SBA's guidelines for personal conduct were very different from ours (and much more strict). I had been in their league for a very short time at that time as a very casual affiliate member and never had an issue with anyone there myself, but I was familiar with a few stories that at I thought were ridiculous (I really don't remember most of the stories or most of the details of what I do remember, and it's also been almost 5 years, so I'm not sure if my opinion is any different now). But being a league with stricter guidelines, I can understand where some people may have been shocked to see things posted that they would have dealt with personally on their own website.

 

I'm not going to say that the SBA response was entirely in the right. Our league wasn't given much opportunity to officially respond to a fairly aggressive pushback, and later on that same day, the SBA had removed their affiliation with us entirely. Their justification for this was (legitimate or not is up to you) that the VHL had generally held relaxed standards that the SBA was not interested in promoting, and that recent events had made it clear that the VHL was not interested in changing them. One day in the books for Beav as commissioner, one affiliate partner lost, and one serious dialogue that hadn't even begun to reach a conclusion--what a start to a job (and an admittedly funny one).

 

This was something that made lots of VHL members mad--myself included, and I had nothing at all to do with that game thread. From my perspective at the time, the entire community, just about none of which I felt were actually hateful people and most of which really didn't go around regularly dropping off-color words, had just been punished over something that probably never would have gone down the way it did had the Hounds been able to win a few more playoff games the finals been anything at all other than the team with the SBA's entire BoD up against the team that dropped the first comment. I had a lot to say about this, mostly on Discord, and although I remember being very opinionated and openly saying that I thought the whole thing was pretty stupid, that was about as far as I ever took it. The first few days on the VHL end saw some reactions from our members, though, that certainly didn't help the situation. Some people went to their league to call them the same sorts of words that lit the fire, and not only got banned for it but became shining examples of people the SBA could point to and identify as parts of the problem. I remember disliking some people I'd never talked to personally, and I felt that even though my own disagreements never broke any rules (written or otherwise), I felt that I was disliked by some people as well when I made them known--something I confirmed much later on when I joined BoG and found a screenshot of the list of people the SBA had a problem with, with me on it.

 

Things were pretty quiet after the first few weeks or so, though. We kept observing the affiliation agreement on our end because we didn't want to punish any regular SBA users who had nothing to do with the situation, and while the topic kept coming up (it was huge news!), it didn't ever turn into people going at each other's throats. The only differences were that VHL tasks weren't claimable in the SBA, and lots of us had grown to distrust one another.

 

After five months of sitting around and passively disliking each other, though, the VHL was informed that affiliation was gone forever. The league had been working behind the scenes to try to work out a set of policies that were agreeable to everyone, and it was eventually decided that this was no longer realistic. VHL leadership claimed that this decision was made unilaterally, and you can read the thread I linked there to try to develop your own opinion on the matter. That was one of the more interesting arguments featuring really important people on both sides that I've ever seen, and it relit the fire on our end. Lots of people made it clear how much they still hated the SBA then--I think I did too, but I don't remember. 

 

Something that made me think about things a lot, though, was this post made by SBA member @Beowoof a couple days after that announcement. What was detailed in that post didn't fully line up with what I'd seen or my own perception of the situation (I was in BoG at that point and had access to all the primary sources of info), but if I tried to look at it from the SBA's perspective, I found the thoughts laid out there pretty reasonable and could see how someone on their end could have viewed things in that way. I also liked what @okochastar had to say there and thought a bit about how I'd gotten to know a handful of people from the SBA in the past months and really liked them. The sim league world was really a better place once we stopped wondering how we could run around shit-talking each other and got past all the stupid league identity stuff to just have a little bit of fun together in our free time. Plus, I'm sure the VHL wasn't perfect then and isn't now--but the league had taken a harder stance against the sorts of things we were called out for in that time and I really didn't miss seeing them.

 

Why, though, is this in Gustav 30 in 30 instead of just being a recap of the league in general? I'm mostly describing things done by other people, and the most I was ever connected to the situation was that I complained about it a lot. Well...I talked quite a bit in my second installment about how I'd been part of a very tribalistic team-versus-team drama in the VHLM and how that shaped my views on having basic respect for people. I think that did quite a bit in terms of adjusting how I dealt with people I knew I'd have to see again around the site. But I think that sort of tribalism popped up again on the level of the entire league, had real league-altering consequences, and sucked me back into the mindset to some extent. I was important enough as a VHLM GM that the league knew who I was, and so now I had to make sure my league was taken seriously. The SBA, much like any other league, has tons of good people in it that deserve my respect whether I've met them or not. I think this was the last time I jumped on any "my group is better than your group" train in a sim league as blindly as I did, and I think I learned a lot by watching things go down that helped make it so I wouldn't jump on things like that again.

 

Also just like any other league, following incentives for benefit takes priority. Reddit recruitment was pretty much the only source of new members for either of us at the time, and the SECOND our accounts were reported and blocked from a bunch of communities, guess whose affiliation was magically back.

 

I will also clarify that I have NEVER believed the VHL to be a hateful place in general. At the end of the day, now that I'm done caring about it, I think this was an unfortunate situation featuring lots of immaturity both ways that somehow eventually ended up changing the vibe of the league a little bit for the better. For the most part, I think we had good people who had gotten used to a certain environment and evaluated how they did things once that environment was challenged. To some extent, that was eventually me too. I did some growing that I'm almost glad happened as a result of staring alone at a screen instead of saying something wrong in real life and hurting people close to me. That isn't to say I learned to be offended by everything, or that I'm now whatever cartoonish representation of "woke" some people have in their heads over things like this (in fact, I really couldn't care less about that sort of mindset). There's a huge difference between that and just having respect for people and treating them normally--and I think the VHL has largely learned to adapt in those ways. I'm not sure that I'd say I'm glad this was a big chapter in VHL history, but I'm glad that we're past the negative parts. 

 

Enough of that--it's time to have fun with what's left of my Wednesday night.

 

 

Read my other articles for the full Gustav experience (hi Berocka):

 

#1: Lightning Glory Gonna Be My Name

#2: Can't We All Just Get Along?

#3: Who Needs Cybersecurity Anyway?

#4: The House That I Built

#5: Can We Fix It?

#6: American Beauty

#7: The Kids Are Alright

#8: Dogs In A Pile

[okochastar 97]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:57 AM, Gustav said:

One day in the books for Beav as commissioner, one affiliate partner lost, and one serious dialogue that hadn't even begun to reach a conclusion--what a start to a job (and an admittedly funny one).

 

This was a very good way to put it. Exceedingly funny indeed

[okochastar 97]

Also, your series looks fantastic I'll be sure to read the other editions now.

[Beketov 9,026]

God I don't miss that time. So much bickering with the SBA guys while also trying desperately to control our own members who seemed hell bent on actively making things worse. Made us better in the end but was definitely hellish to go through.

 

But yes, was also really running that it happened on Beav's first day and I definitely never let him live that down,