My past friend, @lbds137, has recently come under fire for speaking out on her ban from Nightshade Network, or NN; it is a witchcraft Discord server, and not one of small population.

While I by-and-large enjoyed my time there, I feel the need to stand by her and speak on my experiences, as well-because I, also, was banned.

I had been present for some time there, and I’ll admit, I raised controversy with my brash and blunt opinions; I did not do so on purpose, and I did not do so with any intent to hurt anyone (and nor did I). However, at one point, the owner and leader of NN (whose name shall be unmentioned for reasons of professionalism) needed to take a break of some days, the amount indeterminate. Their life was getting in the way and stressing them, and that’s fair; it happens to everyone.

My sticking point was their decision to, while they were gone, shut down the server. Just close it, for however long they decided to be gone. I add that the staff team was always present, kept up with the rules and their breakages (however much or little I agree with them, and the style of moderation present), and were a fairly large team. They were fully prepared to be able to handle the server while the owner was away.

Instead, the owner, for whatever reason (though I assume to retain final say and control) decided to just shut it all down for a time.

I don’t know if this happened, because I was banned shortly after.

I brought up the points above in their #general-that there were mods, the community would be disenfranchised, that it was unfair to deprive their server members their community, etc.-and, shortly after, was ridiculed and attacked by the owner, the mod team, and various community members because my points made the owner feel bad.

I shut up as requested, though was attacked and berated repeatedly even after I stopped bringing up my points, and then summarily banned a short time later.

TL;DR: The owner of NN wanted to close the server for however long they took a break for, despite a competent mod team in place, I rose a point about why this was bad, got harassed and banned.

Thank you for reading.

