Modgate
From the Cyber Nations Wiki, the wiki dedicated to the Cyber Nations Game.
Modgate occurred in August 2007, when a CN Forum moderator known as 'Mod of War' became embroiled in a scandal involving the release of the identities of other CN forum moderators, exposing them to possible OOC harassment. Several ranking members of GOONS, \m/, TPF and Genmay were banned and their nations deleted after the scandal broke, though many of those banned were later reinstated.
As with many scandals down through RL ("real life") history, the most damage was done not by the scandal itself, but in the aftermath.
[edit] The First Moderator Removal/Scandal Made Public
Before Modgate, never before had mod treachery been revealed to the general membership. Mods exhibiting bias or other inappropriate traits were always quietly removed from the staff with no explanation to the players, sometimes leading to mistruths spread by the removed mod remaining unrefuted. During Modgate, due to the high level of mistruths being spread by a moderator removed for bias, the first moderation removal for such behavior was shared with the general player membership.
Some of the evidence used against \m/ leaders in particular was provided by Alpert Nation, former Minister of Foreign Affairs for \m/ and also the moderator formerly known as Mod of War. Alpert was caught using his position as a moderator in an attempt to benefit his own in-game alliance by leaking private moderation discussions to members of \m/. Worse yet, he was caught fabricating supposed moderation discussions and identities to give to players, resulting in OOC retaliation against innocent players accused by Alpert of being moderators.
When caught by then Lead Forum Admin Sword of Estel (now the Head Game and Forum Moderator/Administrator) doing this, Alpert attempted to "save his own neck" with both the mods and his alliance by lying to both sides. To \m/, he claimed to have been removed for expressing outrage at the other moderators for bannings of a few of their members and/or allies. To the mods, he claimed that various members of \m/ enlisted him to spy on the moderation team and threatened him into giving out confidential moderation information. Alpert was commonly known to be an incompetent and inactive moderator and alliance member, not trusted by the mods or the players. For this reason he had never been given much little access to the moderation forum, forcing him to fabricate evidence to give to \m/ which he claimed to have done to get alliance leaders off of his back.
As part of his attempt to avoid losing his modship, Alpert provided a list of names to SoE of people he claimed had bullied him into giving out mod information. A few \m/ nations were banned or received warnings based on a combination of Alpert's testimony and other evidence provided to the game staff, much of which came from other members of \m/ under assurance of confidentiality. No member of \m/ was reprimanded by the game staff solely due to Alpert's claims.
Members of \m/ were outraged, not only because Alpert/Mod gave SoE the names, but because Alpert/Mod later claimed the names were pulled at random from \m/'s leadership roster. Alpert/Mod subsequently accused SoE of pressuring him into giving up information, just as he had accused the leaders of \m/ of pressuring him to share mod information with his alliance.
Mod of War was fired from his moderation duties and Alpert Nation was permanently banned from the game. Alpert was also ejected from \m/ despite his attempts to cause further trouble between the moderators and \m/ and GOONS by blaming the mods for his treason.
[edit] Aftermath of the Scandal
In the midst of Modgate, a crackdown was instituted by CN Forum moderators as part of an effort assert more control over behavior the forums. This crackdown, which lasted until the end of August, had the backing of the game admins and eventually included for the first time a permanent ban from the game for anyone banned from the CN Forums.
Coupled with actions of the CN moderators during Modgate, many members of GOONS, \m/, TPF and Genmay believed that the crackdown was specifically directed toward them and with good reason. During the crackdown a far higher percentage of people from those alliances received warnings and temporary bans than players of other alliances. In particular members of GOONS and \m/ appeared to have been targeted, with several members each alliance being banned from the game, including prominent members of leadership.
The crackdown resulted in a storm of protest, some even deliberating committing warnable acts for the purpose of getting warned/temp banned from the CN forums. Others saw the futility of fighting the Mods and urged restraint. Notable among them was ChairmanHal of \m/, who called for a temporary pull out of \m/ from the CN forums and subsequently became an advocate for better behavior.
While the crackdown appeared to have the desired effect of reinstating the appearance of control over the forums, one of the primary side effects of the aftermath of Modgate was the elimination of key members of GOONS, \m/ and Genmay from the game. While not directly related to the subsequent "Unjust War", it is widely accepted that governments of both GOONS and \m/ were in transition at the time war was declared and this hampered them during the conflict.
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