I have been reticent to address or confront this issue publicly for over a month now. However, I have been encouraged to share my perspective and concerns by others outside my party.

I would like to start by saying I voted in confidence of both Lily and Ray. I unfortunately now personally regret those votes. Lily in particular faced a fairly harsh Q&A in Solidarity’s discord where she promised to be communicative should she be confirmed.

Following the bans surrounding the General Election, communications breakdowns began. While myself and Akko both eventually got explanations, the remainder never received quad explanations for their bans or their length. I also view these as a warning sign in retrospect. Akko was banned from mhocpress for two weeks for saying “cope”, something you can easily find both Seph and Lily saying on mhocpress recently as well.

It seems as if the approach was one of silencing drama and arguments post general election with a broad ban hammer. This isn’t necessarily always wrong, however, the events that follow were significantly worse. While in the middle of apologising to me for lack of communication surrounding my ban, Lily informed me Ina was being permanently banned. This almost seemed a self parody to me if I’m honest, dropping that in the middle of a conversation about lack of communication.

Inadorable’s ban was the first one I have been fully contesting. I absolutely agree that the post she made (whose text I will include below) was not appropriate. I explicitly warned her against it at the time. Her reasoning was itself an attempt to stand up for me, as I was blaming myself for Labour’s decision on coalition partner. However, the repeated statements by Lily and Ray that the post represented active suicidality are false. Ina revisited a darker part of her life that unfortunately the quad were part of, something that has unfortunately prevented them being truly objective.

I will say that I posted something similar once years ago, while dealing with the Jellytom situation and in a mental health crisis. Post here. I did receive a mental health ban for this, which included present and active suicidality. To me, this is a very comparable incident to Ina’s, though quad chose to dismiss it due to its age. I received a two week ban for comparison to the permanent one here. Regardless, permanent mental health bans require a very high standard of proof and clear evidence that participation in the game will only be harmful to the person in question. I remember the implementation of the first against Morgsie years ago, something that undeniably improved their life. I likely would have supported a temporary mental health ban in that scenario had Lily approached me with her concerns.

Because of the permanent nature and the untrue statements made, I contested this ban with the quad. It took a full week to get a conversation with the quad. This conversation began with Ray apologising for lack of communication, and then repeating the reason for ban with no option for appeal. I would also add that both Lily and Ray had promised a conversation with Ina themselves about the ban, something which never took place, and still has yet to. Additionally, the Quad were dishonest to their advisors including Timanfya, claiming they had asked how Ina was feeling despite that never occurring.

Throughout this, I was relying heavily on support from Timanfya, the founder of MHoC, and guardian in chief. They’ve asked me to contact them directly with serious concerns in the past, and while I considered it for the post-GE bans, I decided against it to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. I approached them with my concerns about this and screenshots documenting the chats in question. They agreed it wasn’t consistent and began to ask questions through advisor chats. However, instead of this concern being acknowledged, based as it is on a long history of when safeguarding is implemented on MHoC, he was dismissed and even directly threatened by Ray.

At this point, Timanfya became too reluctant to continue engaging, and I cannot blame him. This game has been important to him and he’s been a saving grace on more than one occasion. I myself was severely demoralized and struggled to engage with the game after what felt like an unfair judgment that there was no way to address.

However, I have been encouraged to continue disputing this case by others in the community. They see that the precedent this would set is extremely dangerous and could be disastrous. I would have preferred to simply dispute Ina’s ban through the legitimate channels and have actual discussions. Instead it has become a drama I did not desire. I have spoken to the leaders of all other major parties about this, and while our opinions vary, we all agree that the level of communication from quad has been unacceptable in this and other matters.

I will be additionally attaching extensive documentation of chats with quad to be fully transparent and demonstrate the attitude we received. I come here, together with other community figures, to plead for a better outcome. I personally must demand, in order to feel like this issue has been resolved satisfactorily:

• An apology to Timanfya from Ray for his threat and a public affirmation of the role of the Guardian from the Quad.

• Lily must retract her post regarding Ina’s ban and apologise for misrepresenting her.

• The Quad must reevaluate the length of Ina’s ban and immediately overturn it if appropriate.

• The Quad must promise to be transparent and proactively communicative regarding bans and other moderation actions.

Original Text of Ina’s Strangers Bar post:

“We've not had an easy history since I left the party, I think we can recognise that. I've been a cunt to you at times, something I have repeated apologised for, prompted and unprompted, and I've put the effort into rebuilding my relationship with the party, a party I continue to hold dear even though I have now been active for Solidarity longer than the Labour Party.

We need to discuss the way the Labour Party has treated me before my rejoining of Llafur earlier, because it was below the standards that Labour is holding people to today. Frankly, I felt treated like I wasn't even human anymore, but had become an object of hate. I was Labour's public enemy number one to whom no pain great enough could be inflicted because they always deserved it. And even though I tried to rebuild relations, I never got what I think I am owed by now: an apology.

I'm someone who has dealt with a lot of shit in my life. Yet the way the party treated me stands out even amongst the things that I have gone through, playing into some of my deepest traumas and significantly harming my mental health. There are times I cried and times I wished I was dead.

And I had to keep these things to myself, because I was convinced 'showing weakness' would only worsen things. I felt betrayed by my closest friends and like the Quadrumvirate would not take action on my behalf. What I did to Labour was being a dick and being a bit too involved, what Labour did to me was decide I should feel it for months and months and never treat me like a human being.

Large parts of leadership stood by and looked at it: including two members of today's quadrumvirate. When I DMed Frosty today telling a similar story, I did not get a response. Whilst I'm sure they're just busy and forgot, the fact I had to ask in the first place is below what the party would expect of others, and should expect of itself.

Just moving on has been my goal for a while now. But the fact of the matter is that I cannot 'just' move on, too much has happened for that. I would at least like some acknowledgement of what has happened from Labour members and the party leadership, so that we both know what happened and can take action to stop it from happening again. Nobody should have to go through what I have.”

Discord chat documentation with Quad and Timanfya here