I do think the person who accused Marutti should also be punished for making the situation severe as well as accusing the Staff of stuff they didn't do and like I stated above they're still parading around about getting Marutti banned as if it was a long time goal

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzL8dVb...subscriber

I do think the person who accused Marutti should also be punished for making the situation severe as well as accusing the Staff of stuff they didn't do and like I stated above they're still parading around about getting Marutti banned as if it was a long time goal

I agree

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   "From this moment on... You shall be know as Darth Vader" - Palpatine probably

I have seen some comments on this thread about the way the complainant reacted and I agree that the way the complaint has been phrased is not very desirable.

Asking for a punishment on the other hand is a bit extreme and unnecessary as you have to understand the other side too, in an emotional state one can get worked up. It was a matter close to the persons heart(obviously) and we can't really avoid an emotional response. For eg if i made a blanket statement that all Americans are racists. A lot of people will be quite angry and emotional.

Looks like for better or worse we will be without maruttis information on releases.( which is totally fine)

I have seen some comments on this thread about the way the complainant reacted and I agree that the way the complaint has been phrased is not very desirable.

Asking for a punishment on the other hand is a bit extreme and unnecessary as you have to understand the other side too, in an emotional state one can get worked up. It was a matter close to the persons heart(obviously) and we can't really avoid an emotional response. For eg if i made a blanket statement that all Americans are racists.  A lot of people will be quite angry and emotional.

Looks like for better or worse we will be without maruttis information on releases.( which is totally fine)

Perhaps punishment is too much for the heat of the moment actions.  

The gloating after marutti had been banned is highly undesirable to me.

I have seen some comments on this thread about the way the complainant reacted and I agree that the way the complaint has been phrased is not very desirable.

Asking for a punishment on the other hand is a bit extreme and unnecessary as you have to understand the other side too, in an emotional state one can get worked up. It was a matter close to the persons heart(obviously) and we can't really avoid an emotional response. For eg if i made a blanket statement that all Americans are racists.  A lot of people will be quite angry and emotional.

Looks like for better or worse we will be without maruttis information on releases.( which is totally fine)

Perhaps punishment is too much for the heat of the moment actions.  

The gloating after marutti had been banned is highly undesirable to me.

Really did they gloat? I just heard that they made one comment about him. 

Gloating after  a ban is totally undesirable as that just showcases insecurity in my opinion.

Perhaps punishment is too much for the heat of the moment actions.  

The gloating after marutti had been banned is highly undesirable to me.

Really did they gloat? I just heard that they made one comment about him. 

Gloating after  a ban is totally undesirable as that just showcases insecurity in my opinion.

There were at least 2 with emojis for emphasis.  Well after the ban as well.

I am not asking for punishment in any way.  I just think if we are looking at one party’s behavior, we might also want to look the other way a little bit as well.

In my opinion, I feel how j Ash?! reacted was more than just simply inappropriate. It was quite intentional and not a case where emotions burst out unexpectedly. While Im a nice person and can somewhat forgive people for their feelings taking the best of them, I dont think its nice if they cause trouble intentionally. For example, the screenshot of the said user in question blatantly saying “No” to a request for civility 

At the end of the day, both Marutti and the other user have their own faults in the situation, which most of us agree on

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Call me either Sands/Suns! That one female Beyblade fan

Pfp: Cedric from Arcaea by Nataslyn on Discord

[Status: Lurking]

In my opinion, I feel how j Ash?! reacted was more than just simply inappropriate. It was quite intentional and not a case where emotions burst out unexpectedly. While Im a nice person and can somewhat forgive people for their feelings taking the best of them, I dont think its nice if they cause trouble intentionally. For example, the screenshot of the said user in question blatantly saying “No” to a request for civility 

At the end of the day, both Marutti and the other user have their own faults in the situation, which most of us agree on

Agreed 

Marutti was in the wrong for what was done, but j Ash could've handled it with a bit more maturity after the fact.

The Drive folder has been updated with screenshots of the messages jAsh!? posted following Marutti's ban.

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Spoiler (Click to View)

This is what we all want, Brad.

I read some of the screenshots...

I'm sorta the fence about this one but I think he should have been banned. Sometimes the insults are pretty blatant in other bans, but this one... it's interesting. I don't think this was racism. He was specifically targeting South Korea, yet he wasn't attacking an ethnic group. I haven't been, but I'm sure multiple people from all walks of life live there. I think this was political hate speech mixed with a strong sense of nationalism and a bit of generalization. Of course, that doesn't mean that there wasn't racism involved. These things tend to stem from or create racism. That doesn't really matter though (not morally but in terms of the offense), he hasn't to my knowledge said anything to target a major ethnic group in South Korea. But that isn't the question. Is this a bannable offense? Yes, I didn't read everything, and even without that, he could have gotten PM/DMed some sort of warning. I'm pretty sure this is the case. I've got a 10% warning for saying that you can't control beys with your mind(albeit quite rudely), there is no chance marutti didn't get a warning. I was actually in the middle on this, until I checked the first things you see without even scrolling downwards on the community rules page, the basic community rules. Treat other members well, stay away from sensitive topics, and make posts people want to read. I'm quite sure we have South Korean members or members of South Korean descent. In terms of the second rule: "Discussions about sensitive topics like politics or religion, or topics that wouldn’t be appropriate for all ages are forbidden." I honestly don't think I need to address the third one. Not only are these rules literally common sense, but they are also very easy to find. There is also a warning directly below that: "Members that break these rules could have their accounts suspended or banned permanently." The BASIC community rules state that he should be suspended or banned for breaking one. Looking at instantly bannable offenses, he broke two(three if you count insults and four if you count Repeated rule violations). The text under Registration Rules states: "Violation of the rules you agreed to when registering for the site: that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws etc." He has clearly broken the hateful part. He also broke the Trolling rule, which states: "Do not post in order to anger other members or intentionally cause negative reactions. For a given post, this can be a subjective call, but a pattern of such posting or an especially egregious case will get you banned." I do think part of this was to get a reaction. Looking at the Things not to do section: Inappropriate posting in a debate: "We insist on a certain level of respect and civility toward other users, even when your viewpoints differ, and prohibit posts that attack posters personally or serve only to anger others (see "trolling" above)." Repeated problems: "Any ongoing actions that make more work for the moderators and administrators or regularly annoy other members and require moderator action." Minor problems: common sense is literally a rule. Come on. The reason I said I'm on the fence is that he was pretty quiet about how he said it, but looking at the rules, he should be banned.



anyways, that's all I got lol

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emotional DaMAgE

I agree. We should get to the root of the problem. If Marutti returns, this j Ash person might blow more things out of proportion for whatever reason. They should also be punished.

As of now, Ill stay out of deciding the j Ash user’s punishment. I have no input on it since Im not a WBO staff member and dont have much of a say in it. Theyre the ones extensively investigating and working amongst one another for a solution, while we are the ones giving evidence and reasoning

On a positive note, I just wanna give props to the WBO for working on and enforcing policies for prevention. Kudos for releasing guidelines and an easy-to-understand tutorial on reporting and reacting to issues. I do think it could be expanded a little further (i.e. emphasis on not reacting immaturely in a situation) — nevertheless, I think its a good step in preventing something like j Ash’s outburst

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Call me either Sands/Suns! That one female Beyblade fan

Pfp: Cedric from Arcaea by Nataslyn on Discord

[Status: Lurking]

When high profile posters get in trouble for their posts, or even just regular old posters, it is WBO policy not to make a big public show of why they were banned and what they did. They don't make a thread announcing "So and so was banned for racism" or "So and so was banned for tournament violations". Please stop asking for it. Please stop making threads for it. We don't get to form a jury about whether or not he should have been banned; we're not staff.

marutti was justifiably perm-banned a year ago. The details of that were not made public, but I assure you he was breaking rules A LOT and given ample warnings not to repeat his behavior and he Just Kept Doing it. Really crass namecalling. I regret nothing about that ban. He threw a tantrum before it, he threw a tantrum afterwards. But actions have consequences.

They decided to relax the ban on him mostly because he kept coming back to WBO under alternate account names, another punishable offense. And they decided, well, if we can't keep him away, and he keeps coming back, maybe we should give him a break and see if he's willing to conduct himself according to the WBO rules of conduct. Given potential medical issues that may have impacted his behavior, the idea that time had passed and maybe he would do things differently, he was let back on WBO, with the understanding that similar issues that got him banned last time (mostly repeated name-calling over a series of incidents, threads, PMs, and also on non-WBO locations) would not be tolerated again.

But he's still finding new and inventive ways to break the rules. Even a fraction of the really jingoistic and casually prejudiced stuff he was posting on Discord, if those are accurate, would have been enough to reinstate his perm-ban. He was on thin ice from the moment his perm-ban was revoked, and he clearly decided to go big and take a hammer to that ice.

Stop putting him up on a pedestal. Stop trying to defend him. Just accept that behavior like that invalidates his ability to participate on WBO. Because the rest of you can post without slamming other countries or namecalling. And unfortunately he has shown that he cannot.

When he comes back with another account name, which is inevitable, they will probably just ban him again. As a community, we're not that desperate for breadcrumbs about upcoming releases that we need to tolerate namecalling and jingoism and casual prejudice.

EDIT: And his stuff was political. Very political, and not in a friendly way, in a rulebreaking way. Sort of like if I made a thread saying "Insert state name here is garbage, here are reasons why." That's similar to what he did. Does that help other people in the US understand?

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Hey, parents! Here are all the answers to any questions about WBO Tournaments you might have! Thread-Guide-Hey-Parents-Answers-to-your-WBO-Tournament-questions

Please consult this guide linked below on how to arrive at tournaments before they start! https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-How-to-arrive-at-tournaments-and-other-events-on-time

The Marutti stuff aside, this thread is really proving the point that political discussions are always garbage, and has no place in a beyblade forum of all places.

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Angry Face I mention this later on in my post here, but thank you for compiling all of this and submitting it to us via the ModMail DJ on Discord. Although it may not have been the exact outcome you were looking for, it did greatly affect the action we took, which I describe in more detail below.

First however, in our announcement we asked if “anyone has any questions, comments or concerns regarding this matter, please contact a member of the Staff team for further support.”

Posting in the Discuss worldbeyblade.org forum was to be for anyone who had “any questions, comments, or concerns about the Community Rules or how they are enforced in general”, not for this specific issue.

Some of the discussion in this thread is not appropriate as it leans into the types of topics that are not permitted by our Community Rules, and the screenshots you’ve provided were not included in our original announcement because many also violate our rules.

So, I will be closing this thread but welcome you–or anyone else–to please message me directly if you’d like to discuss this particular issue further.

However, at this point I understand that it’s already out there. So, I’d like to provide some further context publicly for the community behind our decision to help you all understand.

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On warning the complainant

We specifically chose not to issue a warning to the user that reported this issue, jAsh?!, because although some of his messages violated our community rules, he ceased the violating behaviour quickly when asked, apologized to us for the way he brought it up, and has now also promised to not raise this topic again and will follow the Community Rules in the future.

So yes, he should have approached things differently and acknowledged this to us directly in a private conversation.

However, we also feel we could've done better in our initial response, which we mentioned in the announcement made about this.

We often seek to resolve issues without issuing a formal warning (as is stated in our Community Rules), and this was a situation where we were able to when considering his lack of history and apology.

But if he chooses to not abide by his promise, he will be warned and/or suspended.

On whether the comments qualify as "racist”:

marutti's messages stated discriminatory and derogatory generalizations about Koreans. Discrimination based on race is racism. That means, to us and by the standards of our Community Rules, the comments qualify as racist.

If they don't fit your own personal definition, that's your decision to make. If you'd rather call them discriminatory, or problematic, or some other such term, you can.

This is a difficult area to navigate and I understand that there can certainly be some debate when it comes to the definition of these things, but we made the decision that based on our Community Rules the comments would qualify as racist. If you message a staff member, we are certainly open to more thoughts about how and why you may view this differently.

But ultimately we decided that they violate our community guidelines. They are also part of a broader pattern of behavior on marutti's part, not an isolated incident, which is why we decided to take action.

Some commenters point out that maybe marutti was just repeating what he believed to be common beliefs within Japan, the country he lives in, about Korea.

Even if he didn't believe the discriminatory statements he was sharing, he shouldn't have been sharing them in this community, as discussing such topics in general is against our Community Rules. But beyond that, he also didn't disavow these statements as he shared them, or express that he found them distasteful, so he bears responsibility for repeating them uncritically.

He'd already been informally warned to not discuss these topics in the past. That he continued to do so despite being asked not to factors into our decision, along with the fact that marutti had also received many formal warnings for other issues in the community in the past.

I want to end this post by again expressing our appreciation for your efforts to highlight the full context surrounding the comments made and the nature with which they were expressed. A member of the staff team should have messaged you yesterday as well before we posted the announcement, but given the depth of this issue at this stage in its assessment, it was difficult to have many staff members other than myself reach back out to you with an appropriately detailed message. After taking the time to finalize the announcement, prepare and implement the policy updates, and also to message marutti privately, it slipped my mind and was already late in the day. On behalf of the staff team, I'd like to apologize for that.

We initially applied an extremely long, hasty suspension to marutti not long after the comments were first made.

This was followed by further reflection among staff about some of what we talked about in the announcement: making it clearer how users are expected to report issues and make it clearer for staff how they are expected to respond to complaints.

The staff are not above reproach here and we’ve done our best to make sure we will be able to respond to situations like this better in the future from the beginning.

Other parts of our reflection after the initial suspension was applied were discussing what the severity of the comments actually was, how we wanted to apply our rules surrounding them, how his past infractions should factor into a warning or suspension, as well as debate about how and whether we should be warning jAsh?!, and so forth.

Seeing the report you sent through to Modmail DJ on Discord with all of the screenshots showing additional context also contributed to this.

Several of us reviewed what you provided in detail and it was decided to reduce marutti’s suspension by 50%, which was significant given the initial length that was applied.

We recognized that there could be some debate about things such as whether the views expressed by marutti were those that he held himself. However, such topics are still not appropriate or tolerated on the WBO. And as mentioned earlier, the way he expressed them uncritically made it worse.

Taking this into consideration along with his numerous past unrelated infractions, we decided that a suspension at a length of 50% of our original suspension was appropriate.

However, upon even further consideration we decided that we would offer him the opportunity to reduce the suspension even further to a total of 25% of what his initial suspension was if he agreed to simply publicly apologize for the comments and for breaking the Community Rules. We are awaiting his response about this.

So, your report actually greatly affected our final response to this situation and his suspension.

We also debated about whether to make the announcement a general one or to specifically name who was involved. We decided to add in his username because of the number of people asking about the situation given the public nature of how it was brought up. We worried that by not doing that people would hunt down finding out who it was and it would cause more speculation and debate than had already occurred. However, understandably it is a sensitive topic and I can understand those who wouldn't have gone this direction. We weren't sure we could win either way.

Enforcing the Community Rules is often never something completely black and white. We had to make many tough decisions here about how exactly to address this, and in doing so understood that given the nature of the situation that we would not be able to please everyone entirely.

But we’ve done our best here to consider all of the different sides involved and apply appropriate enforcement of our rules where applicable.

marutti has been a valued member of the community for several years and although a suspension was justified here, by no means do we intend for him to have to leave for good because of this. This is why we explicitly stated that his suspension was temporary. In any situation where we’ve warned or suspended someone, we always do our best to resolve things in such a way that will allow community members to ultimately return. I hope the details above regarding this situation demonstrate our efforts to be as lenient as possible in situations like this.

We are all here as lovers of Beyblade and are doing our best to build a community which is welcoming to everyone even if they might make some mistakes. We recognize not everyone is perfect.

And that means as staff we are also not perfect and our decisions are not unquestionable.

We are constantly evolving. It is my hope that the improvements outlined in our announcement demonstrate our desire to continually improve our ability to assess and respond to situations like this.

We understand that you–and others in the community–may still not fully agree with this decision, and you are entitled to feel that way.

If you do, I sincerely welcome any of you to message a member of the Staff team with any further concerns or ideas for how we can improve further. Thank you.

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