This user is suspended. Reason: (not public) what happened with Sofia and her moderation?
I donāt expect that it will be shared publicly when it says ānot publicā right there.
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She was a well known and well loved user and moderator.
Now sheās been kicked off from moderators team and from the forum.
This thing wasnāt explained to the users and theyāll keep wondering what happened.
My personal opinion is that the moderators team didnāt manage well this case. Itās a very unpleasant elephant in the room and it will be until someone will take care of it. Iām using the word ācareā in a caring way (not just āget rid of itā), because I think this deserves it.
Kicking her out and being silent about it is a wound for the whole site and forum.
Iām not trying to create a flame about it. I just think that this wound is doing harm to a lot of people in different ways and avoiding to address it is the worst choice.
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Let me just state that the situation is quite complex, and Iām not sure how the moderator team should react. I donāt want to throw Sofiam under the bus, but sheās practically throwing herself in front of itā¦
Initially no clarification was given, since this is not a thing users of OGS need to know, and making such a statement would give Sofiam a bad name. But seeing as the topic keeps coming up, and we are being accused of things without a means to respond, perhaps we should be allowed to explain.
You are, though.
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I think people who are interested personally have means to contact Sofiam directly and ask. Sheās active in many different platforms.
If they donāt/ wonāt, maybe they should stop and ask themselves if their motive is a bit more gossipy than they would like to admit.
Going about it publicly through OGS is a choice.
Also, unless someone knows for a fact that Sofiam wants this stirred, my first thought would be not to ask, because, unless Iām reaching straight for the wrongdoing, if I was kicked out of somewhere odds are I wouldnāt want the reasons aired for the whole world. Usually, itās embarrassing for the person to have their mistakes named and shamed, whatever those may be.
I want to say, when we are given a pause, we are not only expected but itās also the best course to reflect on the situation, even if we are right. If we unpause and find ourselves at the same exact spot we were before, this means we just held our breath until we could yell again, and we donāt really want to talk.
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I clicked on OGS and I landed on youtube beauty community, circa 2019. 
My suggestion on this topic is to leave it alone and not keep trying to bring everybody on board to play jury.
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Dramageddon was a SHOW. 10/10 would 
again.
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If this is flammable material, that aināt because of me.
As you can read, my words are calm and caring for her, for the server, for the forum and for the moderators too. I think something better could be done. I could actually help in doing it.
The issue is still present, people keep asking, so I decided to talk publicly.
If any moderator is interested in discussing it further, they can contact me privately. I donāt know who you are.
As a last word, let me say that Iām very saddened by seeing this treated as āgossipyā and matter of jokes about youtube and pop corn.
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Only if the statement were bias. You are critisising her where she canāt defend herself and imho a complete an honest statement would reflect badly on everyone involved, not just Sofiam (including myself and those who chose to stay silent).
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Where are we criticising her, publicly?
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Moderation is difficult.
Running a team of people who can successfully execute good moderation in a coordinated way - part time volunteers far flung in time and space and culture - is especially difficult.
It is inevitable that sometime a member of a moderation team is not aligned in values and expectations, and when that happens their time with the team is over.
Sofia is not the first case, nor likely the last.
Handling the unfolding of this kind of thing, where people are passionate about an entity that they have invested time and emotion is, fraught with pitfalls.
Humans make mistakes, let emotion get in the way etc etc. This is inevitable, and it is what happened in this case.
If anyone really thinks that the behaviours they see from the OGS moderators in the ongoing day-to-day interactions is indicative that these people donāt care about each other or the community, then ā¦ really that person should find somewhere more agreeable. Good luck with the hunt.
In fact, the OGS moderators do care about the community, each other, and especially the moderators who had to step aside. What a tough thing to be asked!
Raking over the coals of it, or suggesting that the OGS community should hold an enquiry and cast judgement in the forum, is not a helpful suggestion.
Enough to know that a call was made that a person needed to step down from moderation, it was a particularly difficult case, and missteps made despite everyone doing their best and having the best intentions. We are trying to make sure weāve learned from what mistakes there were, and be a better moderation team as a result (and trying to heal the hurt that all involved experienced: a slow process, not aided by threads like this).
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Quite the typical politician/HR response lol.
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You have no idea how many hours months of being harassed by Sofia we have had to endure.
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I would like to suggest closing this thread and moving the last posts.
It was once a tribute to Sofiaās positive impact in this community. It should stay as it was, frozen in time, hoping that we can remember the good things, come to terms with the bad ones, and let go.
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And to say more about that: Itās fucking impossible to keep your calm and behave like a moderator when you are constantly being insulted, criticised and harassed by someone. You have on the one hand to keep the appearance of fairness and control, but on the other hand there is this person who just makes your blood boil, and you have no proper way of exposing how problematic they are, because thatās ānaming and shamingā, i.e. weād be breaking our own ToS doing it.
But good God do I want to write a bunch of insults here and be done with it. It costs me considerable effort not to do so.
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Consider this: Sofia was by far the most active moderator of the last year, she worked on dozens of reports per day, and as far as I know, she was loved by the community for what she did. She and Kosh handled basically the entirety of the reports during a period of more than 6 months, and reports got answers within a couple of hours, usually within minutes.
And yet despite this amazing amount of work and commitment, currently none of the active moderators believes that Sofia should come back to the team, and several believe that she should never have been in the first place, losing their tempers even trying to respond to this thread.
It should give some sense to how ācomplexā this situation is, alright?
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Iām done now.
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Reopening this affair serves no good purpose. All it does is give further opportunities for defamation to both sides, while observers have no way to judge what is true. Meanwhile, the mod team possesses information dominance and 100% control over the levers of power, which makes the very idea of honest debate completely impossible in principle as well as in fact. Everyone can and will think what they like. But donāt say what you thinkāit could get you banned.
Edit: Corrected typo
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This simply isnāt true.
In theory the moderation team can apply arbitrary censorship, but in fact it is held to high standards of use of the power - by itself and the community - and that power is only used in rare and extreme or blatant circumstances.
As one example just now: someone saw fit to poke fun at my post - a post that obviously took time and thought to write, a post that tries to express the personal damage that is being done: that this is hurting all involved. Why would you poke fun at that FFS?
Are they banned? No of course not. Even my rude outburst at that had to be removed.
The āpowerā of the moderation team is limited by community expectations of reasonable judgement.
Whatās more, the community, and the way its run, was established and maintained long before Sofia came and left the moderation team. In fact, prior to Sofiaās involvement, āthe communityā was always the first thing people mention as great about OGS. That community is run by the moderation team - the current moderation team.
And as I already said - we know that very human mistakes will be and have been made from time to time, and we try really hard to learn and improve.
So: if you donāt like it, then leave. That is the power you have. If everyone thinks we are doing a bad job, and votes with their feet, then anoek doubtless will change the way its run. Or shut it down? 
Or stay and moan, and have fun doing that I suppose.
It seems a shame that one disgruntled person could bring it all down thoughā¦ is āwondering what happened in this caseā really worth that?
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Yes it is. The danger with these kind of dramatics is that the caring and motivated are driven away and apathy wins, along with those that can just absorb it as entertainment.
There are still caring and motivated people on the team and I wish to thank them for enduring the unpleasantries for the sake of being able to make a worthwhile contribution.
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