darkSpyro

With the new game announced, I thought I'd visit and go down memory lane.

When Dark52 was the sole admin here with no moderators, predatory users had full reign to do whatever they liked in PMs to younger, more vulnerable users with no consequences.

This website, despite being about a children's video game and having no age restrictions, was NOT safe for children. Yes you could say parents should have kept a better eye on their kids, but it's easy to get around these restrictions and just not listen to advice. We're not about to victim blame here either.

I think it's entirely fair criticism of Dark52 when I say users such as Levi should have been permanently banned much sooner. He knew Levi was asking users for nu de photos of themselves, many being under 18, which is the illegal btw under soliciting 'corn'.

I had a dreadful experience with the user goldengeye. I was 13 born in 97, he was two years older than me born in 95. He sent me extremely inappropriate PMs considering the age gap and asked me to send such photos of myself to him. Thankfully I did not. He also talked about wanting to meet up. When I told his girlfriend about what messages he was sending me, he then violently threatened to "break my nose". I told Dark52 about this in PM, there was no response or action. goldengeye's account is not banned.

If this gets deleted I will just repost it until my account is banned.

Anyone got any other experiences to add? I'm sure there has already been a topic about Levi and how he's now in prison.

Yupppp if with moderators there were still many issues, it was nearly lawless when Dark was waffling about getting any

Don't have any huge cases, but I had some from the time Dark didn't let moderators have banning power yet - people would get islamophobic,lgbtphobic all kinds of -phobic; or threaten other users over minor things, or even full on dox to silence the other, and nothing would happen because Dark had the final say.

The dS wild west was certainly a wild and definitely unsafe time. I remember all the pleading it took for dark52 to finally pull his head out of his rear and open up moderator applications.

As for levi, hopefully that depraved loser is rotting away in prison being the disgusting predator he is. I doubt he was the only one behaving like that here, but he was definitely a high profile case.

Quote: Bifrost

Yupppp if with moderators there were still many issues, it was nearly lawless when Dark was waffling about getting any

Don't have any huge cases, but I had some from the time Dark didn't let moderators have banning power yet - people would get islamophobic,lgbtphobic all kinds of -phobic; or threaten other users over minor things, or even full on dox to silence the other, and nothing would happen because Dark had the final say.

ffs

Quote: Immy

The dS wild west was certainly a wild and definitely unsafe time. I remember all the pleading it took for dark52 to finally pull his head out of his rear and open up moderator applications.

As for levi, hopefully that depraved loser is rotting away in prison being the disgusting predator he is. I doubt he was the only one behaving like that here, but he was definitely a high profile case.

Oh yes I remember the pleading. Someone spammed the site with 'corn' and it was up for hours visible to all ages because Dark52 was not online to remove it.

I completely agree with everything that's been said here. Nothing was ever addressed in a timely manner—if it was addressed at all. Even now, despite having moderators, many of them appear to be inactive, and rule enforcement still seems inconsistent. That said, this certainly doesn't apply to every moderator.

Given everything that's been discussed in this thread, I think it's important to say that if the new game brings people back to the forum, I sincerely hope the mistakes of the past aren't repeated. A safe, well-moderated community should be a priority from the start.

I’m surprised to see anybody bring these things up and embarrassed by how long I’ve known this site, but I appreciate your post. To be honest, when they announced a new Spyro game, this place was my first thought and my stomach churned. Don’t want the game and I’m part of the Microsoft boycott, I’m not going to heal by being here so it’s not like I have any other reason to visit, I should just stay away…

I don’t know how I wasn’t asked for inappropriate photos at any point on here. There was one user, probably long gone, who claimed to be a teenager but was very aggressive about wanting to date me. So I dunno if they were a groomer or just dealing with their own teenage issues. I think I remember having sort of suggestive conversations I shouldn’t have had on here while I was still a teenager, but otherwise it was early into my adulthood which is at least weird, although I don’t think that was as nefarious. I can’t remember for sure when I had those conversations. I don’t know. It was all unfortunate but it wasn’t explicit so nothing compared to some kids here. I wouldn’t say I was groomed. And I was here for way too long, so I seriously dodged bullets.

I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m just so sorry that happened to you and I don’t even know what to say about it. This stuff was a serious problem here, never should have been in the first place, let alone have persisted for so long.

These problems kept going even after this place had mods. There’s also the fact that dark hand-picked literal children as mods too. This website had multiple groomers before there were any mods and yet he still decided to do that. It’s just something that speaks for itself.

The adult mods had their own issues. While it was better, it was still so much worse than it should have been. Clique website. I remember one mod basically self-promoting at times. I remember one mod who was just passive-aggressive every time I saw them. Dawg I remember- this is one of the few things I can laugh at- being suspended for double-posting while Sess had threads with her blatant harassment be hidden from view, swept away. Just context for anyone who wasn’t here, Sesshomaru75 was another prominent user who turned out to be a groomer and was exposed much more recently than Levi. Up until she got exposed, she was one of the most rude regulars on this website and yet was constantly excused for it. But other than the harassment, I can’t personally speak for what happened with her.

This was a huge community moderated as if it were just a small friend group. I’m not trying to make light of the grooming or say the bullying was just as bad of a thing, but even beyond grooming, this wasn’t a safe or good place for children because of how certain adults here acted and how the entire thing was run. I remember years ago seeing someone say something like “darkSpyro can’t decide what age group it’s for” or something which was so true. Most of the rule-pushing stuff was contained to this subforum, but that’s not a good excuse because new children joining wouldn’t know better or have any barrier to entry. There’s the moderation, then there’s also that dark could have stepped in and at least set some standard, but he didn’t.

It gets easier over time, but you know, It’s not normal to have the kind of reaction I did to a game announcement or even to be typing all this. What I experienced on this website is not the kind of thing that therapy could directly tackle, outside of validating that I wasn’t as awful as I felt about myself from things on this site. Therapy hadn’t and I don’t know if it even has caught up with growing up on the Internet like that, I’m still figuring this trauma out because I didn’t have fitting support when I most needed it.

I can’t even have it all wiped because dark is so so incredibly stingy about superflagging. I’ve emailed multiple times about other accounts and I never saw any response. I don’t know how or why anybody has kept contributing or kept tying to liven this site up in good conscience. I don’t know how dark could have kept it online in good conscience, or have seen what happened here and have acted basically the same way for the entire lifespan of this website. He shouldn’t have even started a community for children’s’ games if he was so unwilling or unable to be responsible for it. This site is just a wreck from the top to the bottom, with that admin and that history, it’s more than a matter of trying to rebuild it better. I think that this website just deserves to be buried.

I still talk regularly with about three people I met here. At least all of it wasn’t for absolutely nothing, at least we got to meet and I think we have nice friendships, but there was so much pointless immature pain that came about here. I really regret being here, posting about myself and game news so much. The sad thing is that I’ve seen the exact same kind of things in some Skylanders circles, so both of these series are kind of ruined for me by my experience with these communities. It overshadows all of these games for me. The nicest thing I can say is that at least this was a politically progressive space, unlike some of those other circles.

After all this time, it’s more important to make things better for myself, but I feel like I’ve never been able to completely heal from my experiences here. I’m not doing as badly as this post makes it seem, really, but I don’t want to downplay how awful this community was. I guess I’m just venting and piling it on because I think this place doesn’t deserve any better.

So many users here made lovely contributions or were just trying to have fun only to be targeted over absolutely stupid, pointless things. I don’t know where a lot of them are now, I’m sure some of them probably just look back and laugh or don’t feel as badly so power to them, but I know there were other people who felt that way because they told me themselves. There’s a difference between doing a little trolling and having a little chaos about and pushing back on spam or oversharing, versus the favoritism and selective moderation and other garbage that happened here. Again, it’s not on the level of the grooming, but it was still awful for kids.

OP I recognise and vaguely remember you, but I never really knew you- no idea if you would have recognised me on any other account- however I hope you can love yourself. Just don’t forget self-love, especially these days.

I probably won’t check back here, fyi. I was just here to check one of the guides, then found this thread. Despite all that I said, I’m at a point where I trust myself to disengage and I know it’s the healthiest option for me. That game announcement really affected me more than I would have hoped, thank god that at least I have people to talk with about it and not be so scared of being blamed now.

Quote:

. I don’t know how or why anybody has kept contributing or kept tying to liven this site up in good conscience.

let's be real, we've been doing things in spite of Dark since the skylanders games, maybe earlier