CW: Murder, NSFW

So, I'd like to begin my post with a bit of self-indulgent background. Kia ora, my name's AMN, and I live in Christchurch. As I'm sure many of you know, I was undoubtedly effected by the events of March 15 last year.

Now, shortly after this, MalooFury, also known as Grape, posted a video of the shooting in general and was banned. I always thought this should've been permanent, because, well, it was a mass murder. I mean, in any other sim, if you posted, say, violent pornography or gore, you would be instantly banned. AusSim has a unique approach, one more on rehabilitation. Permabans only really apply in cases of doxxing or alting.

And you know, on some level, I can understand this. A person shouldn't be cast out of a community that they enjoy or that provides them support forever because of one bad night where they did some awful shit.

But there's a limit.

The incident in question, in my view, is a perfect example of why there's a problem. I will admit I don't know the specifics of Grape's ban, but the fact that posting a violent mass shooting, less than 24 hours after it fucking happened, in a chatroom with minors, doing something that would very soon be illegal in New Zealand, should have warranted an immediate permaban, no matter the circumstances.

Obviously people shouldn't be permabanned because they push the limits a bit too far and post a sexually suggestive image or do something otherwise NSFW. But what I would propose is essentially, for depictions of murder and sexual intercourse, etc, for very explicitly NSFW things (perhaps NSFL, not safe for life, should be the standard), a permaban should apply.

Ultimately, AustraliaSim should be a community welcoming of everybody. A place where people are friendly, where people can vent, where people can have fun chatting politics. And sometimes people fuck up, and they need to be punished. The permaban should be restricted for extremely unacceptable circumstances. And I'm glad the mods got to Grape when they did, because I don't want to imagine what would have happened if an underaged member had stumbled upon it. Shit like that scars you. It's not something you do accidentally, or in the heat of the moment- but even if it was, there's a point where things become so unacceptable, that it shouldn't be tolerated.

• model-amn