Request Open Letter to the TLOPO Community Regarding Stephen Teague

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Beggar

Beggar

Pirate Master
To the Administrators of The Legend of Pirates Online and its community at large,

The recent allegations against the TLOPO Moderator, Stephen Teague, of trolling, corruption, inciting griefing behind anonymous accounts, accepting bribes, abusing moderation privileges, leaking players’ chat information, and others, are highly compromising to the TLOPO community’s confidence in the game’s moderation and administrative teams.

We have no doubt that there is mixed truth among the original accusations leveled by Spade, and we appreciate the transparency and grace shown by TLOPO’s administrators as they develop their official response. This appreciation extends to Stephen Teague’s recent public apology. We understand that this situation is far more complex and multifaceted than an outside observer can understand, and that formulating an appropriate response will likely be commensurably difficult.

While TLOPO’s administrators rightly take their time in determining their best course of action, we feel it is to the community’s benefit to formally weigh in and share our feelings and perspectives. Our stance is this: maintaining our trust and confidence in TLOPO’s staff requires that Stephen Teague step down from all levels of the game’s administration.

I reiterate our understanding that some of the accusations against Stephen Teague are likely untruthful. Unfortunately, some among those that he has admitted to in his public apology are so troubling that we can no longer accept him in his role as a game moderator. For instance,

Before I begin explaining anything, I will apologize for where I did mess up. I did leak a screenshot of an individual's chat logs (avoiding naming to abide by the rules) and you can see my apology to the individual in the pastebin/screenshot/whatever medium you saw it in.
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While we appreciate Stephen Teague’s sincerity and openness, his decision to leak users’ private chat information raises serious questions about his judgment and fitness for a role as a TLOPO Moderator. His breach of user privacy directly breaks the promises made to TLOPO’s users in the Privacy Policy of the game’s Terms of Service:
By using our services, you consent to the accessibility of all chat logs and relevant user data sent across our network to our Staff. Anything disclosed by you within these logs is the sole liability of you and not TLOPO. Staff access to this information is tiered and appropriately restricted to certain levels within our administration.
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Unless we are to believe this implies that there is an Administrative Tier of access which includes non-administrators, one of TLOPO’s Moderators broke TLOPO’s own privacy policy.

Additionally, Stephen Teague’s problematic behavior behind the guise of anonymous accounts raises serious concerns about his fitness for his role as a moderator:
When it comes to utilizing alternate personas, yes, I did use some in the past. I would occasionally use these personas to mess around in game. After reflections long ago, I discontinued use of them.
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Stephen Teague’s use of these alter-ego accounts is more problematic than he lets on. During the period when his alternate user, “Menacing,” posted the thread “The Looter War,” TLOPO was experiencing an uptick in in-game griefing, harassment, and doxxing between different factions of its community. We are not suggesting that Stephen Teague was the primary instigator of these malicious activities, but for him to risk catalyzing these extremely problematic behaviors behind the guise of an anonymous account is unbefitting of one of the community’s moderators and most authoritative voices.

Stephen Teague’s actions convince us that he is unfit to continue his tenure as a member of TLOPO’s staff. For the sake of the community’s health, the integrity of its leaders, and our confidence in TLOPO’s administrative team, we ask that he step down immediately.

If you support this request, please list your name in this thread in a message below.
 
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If you need my name here even though it's obvious, Bort Greasegorb here.

I'll start with saying that I do owe Teague, and by extension the rest of the staff team, an apology for an incident I started a year back where I claimed my loot was being "policed" in a way by the game's staff. I was upset and misguided and have felt pretty stupid since then. I'm very happy that I was understood and respected in ways I don't even think I deserved when I started this fight. So again, sorry and thank you.

However, moving on to what is listed in the post made by Spade, I do believe action needs to be taken against Stephen Teague. The reason I have been very vocal about this incident is that I was a victim of the aforementioned Menacing user and the "Looter War" thread. While I myself wasn't faced with too much trolling, a lot of my friends faced some harassment that went beyond gold room stealing. Some of the people doing the trolling were also my friends. In general, the entire thing was an embarrassment that hurt to watch after I held this community in such a high light. Knowing a moderator was practically advertising the harassment made me lose all faith I had in the team. So yes, while I do appreciate Teague and the staff being transparent and aware of the issue, I think Teague has done enough to the point where he should step down. Thanks for hearing me out.
 
daniel

I dont think it will do anything though, certainly not for my own trust in the TLOPO staff. The fact that [insert name here] wasn't terminated (and is currently on test server lol) for doxxing someone makes me have zero trust/faith in the entirety of staff, not just one person, or at the bare minimum with their "checks and balances" system. I could be completely wrong and have no idea what I'm talking about, but we'll never know. TLOPO doesn't talk about that. All i do know is that they doxxed someone, tlopo staff knows they doxxed someone, and yet they are not only not banned but also a member of the test server.

also eliza helmrose but she dont got a forums account
 
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Beggar said:
To the Administrators of The Legend of Pirates Online and its community at large,

The recent allegations against the TLOPO Moderator, Stephen Teague, of trolling, corruption, inciting griefing behind anonymous accounts, accepting bribes, abusing moderation privileges, leaking players’ chat information, and others, are highly compromising to the TLOPO community’s confidence in the game’s moderation and administrative teams.

We have no doubt that there is mixed truth among the original accusations leveled by Spade, and we appreciate the transparency and grace shown by TLOPO’s administrators as they develop their official response. This appreciation extends to Stephen Teague’s recent public apology. We understand that this situation is far more complex and multifaceted than an outside observer can understand, and that formulating an appropriate response will likely be commensurably difficult.

While TLOPO’s administrators rightly take their time in determining their best course of action, we feel it is to the community’s benefit to formally weigh in and share our feelings and perspectives. Our stance is this: maintaining our trust and confidence in TLOPO’s staff requires that Stephen Teague step down from all levels of the game’s administration.

I reiterate our understanding that some of the accusations against Stephen Teague are likely untruthful. Unfortunately, some among those that he has admitted to in his public apology are so troubling that we can no longer accept him in his role as a game moderator. For instance,


While we appreciate Stephen Teague’s sincerity and openness, his decision to leak users’ private chat information raises serious questions about his judgment and fitness for a role as a TLOPO Moderator. His breach of user privacy directly breaks the promises made to TLOPO’s users in the Privacy Policy of the game’s Terms of Service:

Unless we are to believe this implies that there is an Administrative Tier of access which includes non-administrators, one of TLOPO’s Moderators broke TLOPO’s own privacy policy.

Additionally, Stephen Teague’s problematic behavior behind the guise of anonymous accounts raises serious concerns about his fitness for his role as a moderator:

Stephen Teague’s use of these alter-ego accounts is more problematic than he lets on. During the period when his alternate user, “Menacing,” posted the thread “The Looter War,” the TLOPO community was experiencing an uptick in in-game griefing, harassment, and doxxing between different factions of its community. We are not suggesting that Stephen Teague was the primary instigator of these malicious activities, but for him to risk catalyzing these extremely problematic behaviors behind the guise of an anonymous account is unbefitting of one of the community’s moderators and most authoritative voices.

Stephen Teague’s actions convince us that he is unfit to continue his tenure as a member of TLOPO’s staff. For the sake of the community’s health, the integrity of its leaders, and our confidence in TLOPO’s administrative team, we ask that he step down immediately.

If you support this request, please list your name in this thread in a message below.
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Nora
I don't wanna wonder whether my chat is going to be screened and told out to everyone. One mistake can make a big impact (like it did here but there is multiple). It can be really scary when someone does that, and hard to trust people who are SUPPOSE to be following rules. If he stays moderator then thats just tlopo saying theyr'e ok with him doing it. It isn't right.
 
Spade

Also since I have nowhere else to post this, I'd like to clear up the only thing Stephen denied and claimed to be misconstrued.

"To begin, accusations of me being bribed by an individual with Nitro for a name change are absolutely false. The screenshot used was cherry picked from a guild discord by an individual who did not have context of the guild. The individual who "gifted" Nitro to me did not expect anything in return, and often gifted nitro many guildmates in our guild. For this individual to be dragged in the "mud" is disheartening to me, and the details have been misconstrued. The name change the individual received was approved and then changed."

This is Stephen's direct quote and it seems he's slightly confused on this piece of information I included. I wasn't trying to say the specific agreement between these two individuals was Discord nitro for a name change, I was using it as an example to showcase that anyone who is buddy with Stephen and does any sorts of favors for him are far more inclined to receive help on issues than some innocent random player emailing TLOPO support. That's exactly why I included my email first, to show it was rejected as I have no close connections to him and haven't ever gotten along with him. Furthermore, I still find it quite odd that if the name change was approved (assuming by several staff members) and then changed, why was it meant to be a glitch and the real reason kept hidden?

Also, my character that I emailed stating I used my real name in still exists with no option to change the name. Seeing as how a random pirate generated name was approved for a name change, I'd still like my pirate including personal information to be changed now that we know it's possible for TLOPO to do so.
 
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