I want to address the harassment that I experienced on my private Instagram and email by a member of the group that was banned in the first wave in December/January. I want to clarify that this is not a fictitious story, and it did happen. These members had linked my private Instagram account to the group, and my appearance, my husband's appearance, and my mental aptitude were criticized harshly. Additionally, I was accused of animal abuse, and it was hurtful to have my personal life picked apart in such a manner. They also posted on several of my Instagram posts harassing me and spammed my email. I was forced to make my Instagram private to protect myself.

While I understand that everyone has their own opinion, I do not condone this level of harassment and bullying. It is extreme, cruel, and not acceptable. It was not just me that was targeted, but other users on Sylestia as well. It is disheartening to know that this type of hatred and toxicity exists within a community that I helped create and cherish.

I have decided not to post any screenshots to protect the privacy of those involved. However, if compelled to do so, I will. The messages that were sent to me to view were truly disgusting, and it is hard to imagine anyone wanting to be associated with that kind of behavior.

Regarding a personal disagreement I had with a member of the group that was banned, it started with a conversation over themed pets for a festival. I did not appreciate being privately messaged on Discord with grievances about the festival's themed pets. I felt it was out of bounds and rude, as it should have been addressed via Sylestia and not in a private offsite message. While the conversation started on a sour note, we eventually progressed to a point where we were discussing things with each other calmly. However, the next morning, I realized that I had been blocked by this person when I tried to apologize for the previous night. I believe that this interaction may have contributed to their anger towards me, as they were part of the group that was banned.

For the sake of reputation and appearance, I would advise walking away from this situation. It is clear that there is no desire to be associated with one another, and it is mutually beneficial to part ways. The actions that were taken have made the lives of many miserable, and it is time to move on.

Regarding the monitoring of off-site activity, I want to make it clear that I have never been a part of the discord in question. The information was brought to us by a group of users who were upset about the behavior of their friends.

As someone who has been a part of creating and running Sylestia since its inception, I am saddened by the actions of some of its users. It is hard to believe that people whom I considered friends would harbor such hatred towards me, Krinadon, or Sylestia. We have always strived to create a fun and safe environment for everyone to enjoy, but it seems that we have fallen short in some ways.

I understand that my tone in previous communications may have come across as aggressive. However, it is important to know that I am dealing with real-life hardships. My husband and I have been the primary caregivers for my disabled grandmother for the past four years, who requires full-time care. Caring for someone with a combination of COPD, Schizoaffective Disorder, and dementia can be extremely challenging and taxing. The combination of stress, sleep deprivation, and depression that comes with being a full-time caretaker for a loved one in this situation can be overwhelming and may cause me to exhibit a level of irritability that is not typical of my usual demeanor. I want to express my sincere apologies for any instances where my irritability may have caused discomfort or distress. I am doing my utmost to handle the challenging situation with my loved one to the best of my ability.

I believe that everyone makes mistakes, and no one is perfect. However, it is unacceptable to go beyond just disliking someone and to then harass and bully them to the extent that was seen in this situation. It is time to move on and focus on what is important. Sylestia is a pet website, and it is not worth the level of hatred and toxicity that some individuals have brought to it. Krin and I are constantly working to improve and provide the best experience possible for our users. We talk about Sylestia every day and put all of our free time into running it. The website is a source of income for our artists and other team members, and it is not fair to them to have their livelihoods threatened by personal vendettas.

If anyone is genuinely unhappy with Sylestia, I would encourage them to simply walk away and find something that makes them happy. For those who remain, we promise to continue doing our best to create a fun and safe environment for everyone to enjoy.

Hi. This was not pleasant to hear; so many were in on it. I wish I could help in some way.

Hey guys, so ive played Sylestia on again/off again (actually just helped my gf create an account), definitely dont have enough context to understand the issues that players have had, would it be out of line to ask what the legal public record concerns people have are or what people were banned for in the first place/why people feel people were unfairly banned?

People with nothing better to do, I see. Just horrible.

I went to school with this game being praised for its creativity. Please keep up the great work and keep this place safe. If anyone needs help, let me know.

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=105585&page=3#30 Author: Silverkitsu Time Posted: 3/24/2023 at 4:19 AM [quote=2698959] Mood, and same. It's a shame things got this bad, and the focus on discord messages about the economy is weird and possibly a little uncomfortable when it seems like the harassment of staff and players should be enough of a concern to warrant action without getting into the frustrations and spite being expressed off site.

I'm assuming the reason for focusing on the 'tank the economy' stuff, which could be read as just jokes, is because they wanted to post proof the bans were warranted, and most of the harassing messages are presumably inappropriate to post on a minor-friendly site. Even if it wasn't a direct threat, the swatting 'joke' is enough to convince me the bans are warranted. The kind of behaviour some people think they can get away with is wild.

Anyway, yeah, it's a shame. Glad I never get caught up in these kinds of messes. High five, fellow lurker!

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=105585&page=4#33 Author: Dburn40 Time Posted: 3/24/2023 at 4:31 AM Hey guys, so ive played Sylestia on again/off again (actually just helped my gf create an account), definitely dont have enough context to understand the issues that players have had, would it be out of line to ask what the legal public record concerns people have are or what people were banned for in the first place/why people feel people were unfairly banned?

I believe what you're asking about is in reference to what we banned one of the players for back in December. I'd rather not go into further detail on it as I do not want to risk exposure to myself anymore than it already has been. The long-story short is that someone figured out my personal information and began sharing it with others in the group. There have also been jokes made about showing up to my home, swatting me, etc. For obvious reasons, I do not want anything to do with such a person. "Joking" or not, that crosses the line.

The other person from the December ban was banned for creating an impersonating Twitter account and trying to slander myself and the business. Again, I do not wish to provide services to an individual who is taking actions like that against my business.

I can prove at least one of them defended against behavior like that. And I can also say if anyone was being harassed by someone from said server , they would have been banned pretty fast.

The "buying up cheap dia[monds]" message makes me oddly mad at these players. People who usually put up diamonds for cheap are either a) newbies or b) accidentally did such. It makes me mad that people would buy them up without caring that they could've just ruined a player's entire game for the next couple of weeks.
I've bought cheap diamonds twice, but I messaged the players both times to see if it was an accident or if it was intentional (IE a giveaway) just to make sure (because I didn't want to steal, effectively, someone's diamonds from them), and both times it was an accident, and I gladly returned their diamonds to them. The fact that players wouldn't think to do that... makes my skin crawl tbh.

Wish you two well. I'm so sorry y'all had to deal with this stuff.

Edit: Grammar

I'm new to the site but I immediately disliked the expectation that you should not sell fertile high stat pets because it would "make people angry", that sort of thing should be either forced by the site, or left to people's judgement, if someone wants to sell cheap pets, that's up to them, so long as they came by the pets legitimately and aren't doing some weird kind of market manipulation. (I do see how this site is prone to problems in that direction: the lack of hatchery slots means an individual can breed an *exponential* amount of pets)

The harassment though is obviously Not Ok. And yes, even getting publicly available information counts as doxing if you're posting it around and making jokes about swatting.

I think perhaps showing more of the harassing messages would go a ways in convincing people the bans were warranted. Even with names and details redacted, I think most of us can assume you wouldn't just make them up.

Edit: now, is there a way to know if I'm trying to interact with a banned user? I wouldn't want to be spending searching pets and PMing their owners to just find out they can't reply. are the pets of banned players gone or still in the search or what?

I'd like to add my thoughts if I may. It's unfortunate that this subject kept being brought up so much that a forum post was eventually required to address the issue. I honestly feel like the acknowledgment that these players have been banned should have been enough, and the very serious reasoning as to why, could have been left alone. I personally could have lived with never knowing what had happened. However, since so much digging was constructed by other players to find out what had happened, that the Sylestia staff has now needed to address the issue; I do want to say thank you to Krinadon for his handling of the matter by making it public to the best of his ability, as well as allowing a discussion about it to happen. From what I've seen over my years of playing this game, the sylestia community has always seemed like such a good one. Although it is sad to find there are such people on this wonderful website, it doesn't come as a surprise. As can be expected in any community, there will always be people who are two faced. Though it truly horrified me to know precisely what lengths have been gone to in order to harass other players, and the staff. As a victim of a completely unrelated incident myself (players from sylestia were not involved), I can absolutely understand how those who have been targeted by the now banned players feel. My heart goes out to Krin, Faiona, UntitledPrince, and anyone else affected by these people. It frustrates me to see that there are players focusing only on the plotting to take down the Sylestia economy. Not realizing that there was also severe harassment coming from some of these former users, that threatened the mental state, and even physical safety of other people. That is never acceptable. It is literally toying with other people's lives. And we have to understand that what has been said in ways of harassment is cruel, hurtful, or even leaving the victims embarrassed at times. These things are private, and likely not something that the admin wish to share with the entire site. The fact that this has all happened on a website that is a game makes it all the more frustrating. I understand that one will come across people they don't particularly like on any website. I have even done so here on Sylestia. It's so easy to just not have contact with those people though. I will never understand how there can be people who go out of their way to be cruel to others. Thank you to the Sylestia staff for doing their best to keep us safe.

With a rant out of the way, I do have a question for you Krin. The first is, should we expect any new social media restrictions to be put in place? For example, we can no longer give out our discord, twitter, instagram, facebook, ect, accounts anymore. This is something that worries me, as I'm familiar with these restrictions from another site, and although it does in some ways keep things like this from happening, as well as sometimes keep players safe, I don't believe that it's a good thing. It seems to cause more problems than it fixes.