2017 UYScutix Revolution

The UYScutix Revolution was a campaign against the server's administration over the course of the 2017 in a bid for more democracy, the removal of a developer, and ultimately control over the server. It was spearheaded by UYScutix/VJ, a former Senior Admin who grew sick of the server's administration and had such bad blood with management and developers that it ultimately resulted in his indefinite suspension and ban from the server. The movement severely divided the admin team as many chose between supporting his cause and supporting his rivals. Its collapse, which was caused by a group of three people, led to one of the biggest suspension waves in the server's history.

Background

Mark ran TotalFreedom with an iron fist, and this is one of many factors that caused the revolution in the first place.

The revolution's roots began in early 2016 as a combination of multiple factors which ultimately boiled down to unrest with management at the time:

• How management handled public outcry and unpopular decisions: Starting in late 2016, people became increasingly irritated with markbyron's tendency to dismiss public outcry as "nasty drama". A notable case was when several admins resigned in protest after he introduced a controversial program (which gave specific players a special secret rank that only him and a few other executives knew about). He responded by banning those involved from every platform he had control over for at least a week. People were also becoming increasingly frustrated with his tendency to be too forgiving.

• VJ himself: VJ had an unstable history and possibly an untreated mental illness. Having joined in late 2013 and becoming an admin in early 2014, he had resigned in early 2015 due to disputes with other staff members and began to attack the server and its staff with a group of other rogue staff members named DDOXYZ. After attempting to return to the server under different identities, he came back again with the name UYScutix. Some players still didn't trust him and viewed him as unnecessarily strict and hugely hypocritical whenever he complained about other people's pasts.

• Savnith: Savnith was a former admin who was known to act in a cycle of claiming he changed to gain everyone's trust and then engaging in rogue activity after a period of time. Following several years of this cycle, players rejected his attempts to appeal so he had to resort to returning under new identities in order to keep playing on the server. He also became increasingly problematic, to the point where he built a "shitlist" on his website to list the IP addresses of admins he disliked.

• marcocorriero11: Marco was a developer who became a staff member on January 1, 2016 under the Telnet Picks a Super program. He was a controversial figure among his peers, and many criticized him for his actions or behavior. Attempts to vote him off for this behavior often fell flat, which led to accusations that Mark was trying to protect him.

Chapter 1 - Rodeo with Mark

Obsessed with being strict and insistent on being by the books, VJ frequently objected on people's admin applications with lengthy over-dramatic essays for reasons. This style of objections was rather controversial amongst staff members, but the straw that broke the camel's back was his vote on an admin application by Savnith. This prompted many staff members to complain to Mark, who then sent a private message to VJ about it on February 18, 2017. To try to curb this style of objections, Mark essentially banned him from providing reasoning in his votes on admin applications for the rest of the month. It resulted in a lengthy back-and-forth between the two with ultimatums being issued and the same being retreaded several times.

Warning and Partial Sanction

User	Message
markbyron	So it seems your back-tracking and I won't tolerate it: "Seems uyscutix is at it again with his dramatic speech objections. http://totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/49519/savykilo-sa-application I moved that dramafest to the administrator lounge for review. His behavior seems hypocritical - he says people don't deserve many chances yet has had many himself." I fully agree with that statement and in addition to the warning, you may not post anything on an admin except vouch or object; that sanction is valid until 1 March. If you won't abide by that sanction, I can remove all of your posts or demote. Focus on being positive and do not make drama speeches on admin apps.
uyscutix	Is this a joke? Savnith had more than enough chances. My objection was strong enough- in fact, there was more reasons why I would've objected but my reason became too long, because he has done so many bad things I can't list any further. And it's not hypocritical since I never exposed myself to the public, Savnith however did- if he didn't expose himself then he would've be fine by me, but he decided to do it and try scapegoat his exposure to Scarlet (unlike me, who just quietly reported admins who violated the policy). If he didn't expose himself, I would've treated him like a noob/newcomer OP; especially since I have no time and have better things to do then lookup his name on NameMC or find ways to see if he's Savnith. You can't tell me to be positive about Savnith since the amount of chances he had is a joke. Nobody except people like taahanis (who vouch on almost everybody) trusts him. Majority of us already know his cycle, he keeps posting apologies saying he changes but later on he goes rogue or does something warranting perm suspension. If he gets admin again, I am resigning. Savnith is not ever getting my trust back, I'm all right for 2nd chances; and maybe even 3rd chances. But the amount he had is a joke.
uyscutix	I know it's been said before, but I think it needs to be said again. People are getting admin way TOO easily. If you tell me it's "volunteer work" or "unpaid job", why don't you just rename the server motd "TotalFreedom - All Admin Server" rather than "All Op"? Clearly that's what the main goal of this server is, to keep looking for admins. We have over 100 admins; and we have admins on 24/7. The goal has been achieved. So we don't need anymore admins. The main goal of this server is to make sure everyone has an OP experience, but the fact that you keep going on approval sprees (because of how easily people get admin) shows that it is not the goal of this server and that it's to have everyone on the server as admin. Savnith wasted all his chances. He doesn't need more.
markbyron	now you're going on a drama rant with me - I suggest you immediately calm down and if you don't agree with the philosophy of how I've run this server for the last 7 years, you can find a different server. We've argued this before and it won't be argued again. If savykilo has properly followed the change of identity policy, he'd probably be an admin right now but he exposed himself and probably wont get admin now but no credit whatsover to you. If I became a hard-ass owner, you'd be the first one I removed because you power-trip and cause dissension with other admins. This isn't about savykilo; its about you and do you understand what I've told you here? Yes, I understand, No, remove me that's your two choices here. Think about it before you say something you'l regret.
uyscutix	Well then just rename the server motd to "TotalFreedom - All Admin Server" if you always have a reason to go on Quantity > Quality. Notice; we have less players on the server compared to 2-3 years ago. Are you happy about that? We're losing players and players have been leaving the server due to poor quality administrators. Major admins especially people like Savnith are not fit for administrator yet you appear to be a giving chances over and over again. Also FYI, i'm not ranting- i'm pointing out the truth. Because what everything I said is true. Your server has a poor reputation of admins and you actually like having your server's reputation down. 2 years ago we always had a full server on TF; TF was very popular. Nowadays we only get 20/45 players online.
uyscutix	And no, I'm not accepting it. Feel free to remove me then. I am not ever accepting Savnith being an administrator on the server. I don't think I'm stupid enough to fall for his traps again since he keeps saying he changes when he doesn't. He said this many times and there's always going to be an admin like taahanis out there vouching and supporting him. He proved that he is not trusted since every time everyone thinks he changes for good, he goes rogue.
markbyron	Savnith would never get admin back - that's why we have a change of identity policy which wasn't followed. You are ranting and you're of course you're part of the problem if there's any reputation problem. If you have complaints, handle in private instead of making a public stink - DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!!! Last chance vance.
markbyron	and stop writing stump speeches and books - this is a game server not the military or white house. Just chill.
uyscutix	No. I'm not accepting it... that's the end. What even is the whole point making complaints anymore? Even if it is via PM, complaints don't get resolved. So many admins I know off make complaints about poor quality admins and you blatantly ignore them, even some OPs have made complaints about our admins. Getting admin is too easy but then it's too hard for them to get suspended. Since you clearly like having immature and abusive admins on your server. Why don't you do me a favour and remove me? You can replace me with having an abusive and immature admin, Savnith as admin. I happen to know the conduct policy off by heart and I am known to be professional to lots of admins. Since you want to get rid of the quality admins and have highly abusive and immature admins, just remove me.
uyscutix	also don't tell me that this server isn't military or white house. If an OP misconducted, they'd get sanctioned instantly. If an admin however misconducted, they will receive constant warnings. Which is another example to why complaints are now just pointless since they don't get resolved.
markbyron	savnith isn't getting an admin; you're just using this case to grandstand and power-trip. When you're not grandstanding, you're a decent admin and that's why I allowed you back to begin with despite your habit of causing dissension. Now, if you want to be removed, I'll do but you'll be perm banned for two weeks before you can return. I'll assume this is what you want if I don't get a reply in 30 minutes to change your mind. You might to cool your jets and think about it.
uyscutix	and don't tell me I'm part of the problem of TF's reputation going down. It's clearly your problem since you're the owner of this server. I'm actually trying to give you advice how to STOP the problem of TF's reputation going down. Quality > Quantity. 100 admins is enough for just a single damn server. 100 admins or more is what is expected on a network server but here it's just for one single server.
markbyron	assuming you want the removal, I'll post a message that you're leaving at your personal request and you can return as you wish without penalty. There will be NO drama
markbyron	if you have suggestions admin improvements, send to the execs but you're assumptions are wrong as we have a solid process for selecting admins and esp. for promoting them. This is the wrong thread to be arguing about admin quality - answer the question - shall I remove you as requested?
uyscutix	Remove me. You clearly don't appreciate me as admin. People like me and Galahad are always doing hard work enforcing the server since we are pretty much the only admins who actually memorised the conduct policy off by heart, we did it for our own sake and to show how much we care for the server. People will say that I'm biased that I'm always supporting Galahad, but actually it's the truth.
markbyron	if you want to help, you will not grandstand and you will be respectful of all admins instead of smearing people with your ugly brush - is that clear?
markbyron	you might memorize the policies but you don't follow them - the admin application response policy for example. Again, you're grandstanding and are hypocritical.
uyscutix	Yes
markbyron	i have removed you from forum status - i will take the next steps in minutes if you don't come back correctly.
markbyron	i took that yes as a commitment on your part to follow my request and I have not removed you.
markbyron	this thread is finished and I will take your future actions as evidence of whether or not you are going to honor what was said here. In a week, if you have real to the point suggestions (sans grandstanding and smearing) for improving the admin policies, send them via PM to infamas and myself.

Following this exchange, VJ conversed with Video about the situation and forwarded the PM. The original chat logs discussing the matter have since been lost.

Chapter 2 - The Vote-off

On May 18, 2017, VJ created a vote-off against Marco without consulting with Mark or the executive team (a violation of the policy facilitating vote-offs). Resentment towards Marco had peaked at this point, as several staff members (current and former) began to hurl hateful abuse at him. This caused Marco to break down in the admin chat.

[17:03:30] [Client thread/INFO]: [CHAT] [ADMIN] marcocorriero [STA]: feeling sad and on tears now, because i we tought we are family, all friendly and each other acc
[17:03:43] [Client thread/INFO]: [CHAT] [ADMIN] marcocorriero [STA]: accepted each others , and no matters how.
[17:03:54] [Client thread/INFO]: [CHAT] [ADMIN] marcocorriero [STA]: no, i dont want to fight again.

Mark wasn't happy upon finding out what happened. In response, he deleted the vote-off thread, temporarily removed VJ from his staff position to get his attention, and sent private messages to multiple staff members who were critical of Marco asking why he shouldn't be a developer. He appreciated the feedback many gave him, but noted that Marco took initiative to help the server and explained why he finds that important.

Conversation ID #47584 - Marco

User	Message
markbyron	I'd like to know why you think Marco shouldn't be an admin when he taken the initiative to get things done from a dev standpoint. Contrast to Uyscutix (former VJ) who blatantly violates admin policies, loves being a hard case and driving people away. Give me some specifics that Marco need to improve on. I need people that take initiative esp. in dev - even if he's not the one that's doing the coding.
Video	Here's some things he needs to improve on: 1. I believe he needs to know that just because he is a community developer doesn't mean he has superiority over others - I find him quite bossy in certain situations. 2. He needs to improve his development skills. Although he has brought some ground-breaking features (/v is one example), I believe he needs to have some time to gradually improve his skills in Java - this way, he will have a lower chance in making errors when he's programming which means less time needed for patches. It also means he could possibly improve our current plugin's code. 3. He needs to chill out during certain situations. For example, when the well-known rulebreaker (frequent user) joins the server, Marco gets very paranoid and he has attempted to dedicate his time to wipe them off the surface of the earth. So he just needs to relax a bit (listen to some relaxing music or something). That's all I can think of. Please provide input.
markbyron	that doesn't like somebody who needs to voted off - if he's a bossy, a senior, exec or myself can readily handle that. Of course he needs to improve dev skills but at least he's taking some initiative. I just wish that people would take a little effort to stop these problems before they blow up and we have a major drama fest. Appreciate your input.

In more internal channels on the forums, Mark created a thread detailing exactly why VJ was temporarily removed.

uyscutix absurdly initiated a vote-off outside of the policy - totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/24940/vote-off-admin-policy-aug - i consider uyscutix a constant disruptive force who doesn't practice what he harshly demands of others; I have repeatedly warned him. I temporarily removed him to get his attention. If you have a problem a with a particular admin, handle it properly instead of grinding your personal axe.

I urge you to please follow the admin disciplinary process. totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/2046/admin-disciplinary-process

The goal should be to solve problems at the lowest level and before they get out of hand. Unfortunately I think some rather enjoy the public drama.

—markbyron, Removed

The removal itself created a lot of dissent. A large majority of people voted to have Marco removed, so when the vote-off was completely erased and the person behind it was removed, many viewed it as yet another example of Mark defending Marco as much as possible. A few hours after the thread was removed, staff member xRubyMC created a group PM consisting of multiple staff members critical of Marco to discuss it. While there were some who agreed that Mark was censoring them, many of the people in the PM did not agree with the idea of the group as they viewed it as largely unnecessary and potentially disastrous (with one even saying it was looking a lot like a "retarded vigilante group" that "ended up backfiring onto its creators" and warned that this would do nothing but cause more trouble). Ruby ultimately caved in, instructing people who want to leave to do so, expressing concern that there might be spies forwarding the group to Mark, and noting that he was already warned not to cause drama on the forums.

Conversation ID #47598 - About marco is not getting any removals

User	Message
xRubyMC	Hello. I created this PM because of marco is not getting any removals from the voteoff just because mark is being a bullshit on protecting marco. We need your reply on how will this end. Me and scutix were having a conversation on why marco won't get any removals. You guys also don't trust marco because of his "coding" skills. Scutix even got suspended because of his "democracy" opinion. Once his forum account is unbanned, he will explain why his opinion got rejected by mark; because marco, he helped mark to do things. He can't even do codes but he even asked Commo to do it since he knows how to code. I'll need anyone to have a long-ass paragraph post if you have anything that have with marco-related. Have any means that you only got. We'll be having a discussion to this only with Anti-Marco admins who doesn't like marco. Hope you understand. :)
JJ_Jaguar2000	There was no need at all to create a group chat with like 20 admins. Because this will be disastrous. It will end up being like a Marco hate group. Which is not what we want.
xRubyMC	I know, we were having a plan to pm many admins that don't even trust marco. We all know you voted him to remove him.
xRubyMC	Even though, it's more of an issue regarding everyone's votes being blatantly ignored.
JJ_Jaguar2000	Ok. Let me explain. Last night I got carried away a bit. To me I don't really see that many issues with Marco TBH. He may be trying to code something good, or trying to be helpful but it's just not working. I have no idea why I even thought of a voteoff TBH.
Lemon	Apparently the vote off was not in "policy" which I think is bullshit. Who cares if it's not in policy? There are loads of vouches to remove him, and this isn't even his first vote off.
Unknown #1	Ah, I thought this would happen. Mark has been hesitant to remove Marco because he's been biased to him in the past. I think this is absolutely unfair, and mark needs to listen to other admin's opinions. And about it not being in policy, sure, it isn't in policy, but it's a cover-up to allow mark to continue having Marco on the force. I'm on my phone, so I'll go more-in depth when I get back from school.
xRubyMC	The reason why [Rylie] and Reflet left because of marco doing something that we don't even want. All he do was adding weird plugins into the server but it's shit. I like the old tfm better since it's more freedom-like. Even though, scutix can explain why his opinion for the vote-off got rejected and got suspended. Mark doesn't care for us and just protecting marco. He's so arrogant to have marco as his pet.
DarkLynx108	Even though, scutix can explain why his opinion for the vote-off got rejected and got suspended. —xRubyMC If his account wasn't disabled so he is unable to explain
Lemon	Even though, scutix can explain why his opinion for the vote-off got rejected and got suspended. —xRubyMC If his account wasn't disabled so he is unable to explain —DarkLynx108 his account is disabled till his time 6pm today
Unknown #2	I saw the vote off, like everyone voted yes. why the fuck isnt he gone he thinks hes a pro coder or some shit and makes terrible additions to the server that mark keeps accepting for whatever reason
aggelosQQ	I don't wanna have any input but was uyscutix's forum ban and suspension really necessary?
Robin	I don't wanna have any input but was uyscutix's forum ban and suspension really necessary? —aggelosQQ obviously not, it's just plain bias at this point
Galahad	it was unnecessary. if anything, scutix wasn't being "a dictator" this time. he asked for the other admin's opinions, and they were given. I see why [Rylie] and Reflet left now - and they're right. mark is censoring the opinion of a majority.
MrPerson660	Ok, I don't like Marco as much as everyone else but this group chat is too far. This is looking a lot like that retarded vigilante group a few years ago that ended up backfiring onto the creators. This will do nothing except cause more trouble.
xRubyMC	if you want to leave this conversation, please do. dont want any spies to send and mark already warned me not to make any marco drama related. bye now

Mark soon found out about this group, frustrated at this point, asked a select few from the group to be honest with him and give input for how the situation could be resolved. He stressed that while Marco isn't perfect, the person who tried to vote him off is much worse by comparison. After receiving some input from SupItsDillon, Mark made a proposal: give Ruby, VJ, and Marco a 1 week break from the server in an attempt to cool the situation down. Dillon seemed to agree with idea, and Mark put it into place a few minutes later.

Conversation ID #47608 - Ruby and Uy

User	Message
markbyron	So I informed that Uy and Ruby are intent on causing a major disruption over Uy's misconduct with respect to Marco and sent you PMs. To quote a senior, "Scutix feels the need to take a dictator role over everyone. He was the same in his past life. If he didn't get his way, he would convince the person as much as possible." I agree and I'm not going to put up with it whether it's with Marco or anybody else. I've asked numerous people about Marco and they seem the same thing I see - immature actions at times, a pest at times, and sometimes crosses the line - a common thing to most any admin - definitely not worthy of suspensions and invalid vote-offs by somebody who actually is far worse. I would like your input on how we can resolve this matter but if in the end, you feel you can't stomach how I do business, there's other options. Just be honest with me. If you don't want to reply here, send me a PM separately.
SupItsDillon	He honestly just needs a day or two break and be told to read over the policies + promise to mature up and stop being annoying.
markbyron	How about this - a one week or so 'cooling off vacation' for all three (Uy, Ruby, and Marco) and no further sanctions unless warranted.
SupItsDillon	Sounds great
markbyron	alright, see totalfreedom.boards.net/thread/51791/cooling-off

In the official announcement about the breaks, Mark didn't give much detail about the situation in question but did stress that the break was not a sanction but was instead a "cool down".

Three admins will take a short break from the server (Uy, Ruby, Marco) - let's call it cool down and not a sanction or blame game - more like a vacation to let things chill.

—markbyron, Cooling Off