My thoughts on the Max/Pianta/Lely situation

About a 7 minute read, I spent over an hour writing this so please read it...


Before you read this, please keep in mind that everything here is 100% serious, and my intention is to attempt to end these dramas. If you are unaware of this situation it most likely doesn't concern you, but there are some points I will say that may be useful to consider.

I never invested myself into the specifics, but it's clear that there's a lot of bickering going on and it's affecting the people involved. I've spoken to each of the members in private to hear what their thoughts are, and then will come to a common conclusion that hopefully everyone will agree on.

Context:

We all know who @Max-Bros is, one of the the few mods on this site, and if you've used the forum you've definitely seen him around. And if you know the forum, you'll know it isn't the greatest place to be on since there is so much drama and kids spamming nonsense...

That means Max has to spend a lot of time moderating the forum, which takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes some sanity. To his credit, Max is admittedly the mod who has contributed the most to this (truly appreciated btw) so it's clear he's under a lot right now. It doesn't help when there's so much drama and spam either.

You've probably also seen @Lely on the forum too, given he's quite active. He's a friend of Max and tries to help out wherever he can. Other than this he's not necessarily part of the drama though.

There's also Pianta (currently @FDP_ at the time of writing this) who does get picked on quite a bit, and maybe seen posting a few snarky comments every now and then. However, it doesn't mean he's the antagonist in this situation, because there isn't any and you'll see why. He does take a bit more blame than he deserves in my opinion, and also wants the situation to end for the sake of everyone. Pianta also considers the other members to be nice people too, and even claimed that Lely deserves to be a mod here (when he's older) with sincerity.

So what's causing the problem?

Language Barriers:

When I say this, I don't mean that people can't speak English well. It's more about the informal/slang words and phrases that's being used in the arguments and the difficulties of detecting how a person feels simply through text alone. I even struggle to detect this myself sometimes, and adding on the fact that English isn't a first language for some people makes it much worse.

I first experienced this language barrier firsthand (unrelated to this particular situation) when I used the phrase "throw your life away" on chucks. This actually is a phrase that means "wasting time", but Lely interpreted it in its literal meaning and thought I was telling him to actually die. I don't blame Lely for this at all because it's not the most obvious phrase, but it's clear in this example that things can be taken out of context and misunderstood in a way worse meaning.

Back to the current situation, there are two examples of this language barrier that I'd like to mention that both portray Pianta as the 'bad guy' (which I've previously stated isn't the case).

- Pianta has admitted to me that he has used the term "dickeater" in the past, and that Max took it out of context, again which I don't blame. When you call someone this you don't literally mean that they eat dicks, but rather call someone an idiot (edit: it's actually milder than this), which still isn't the nicest word to use but isn't anywhere near as bad as its literal meaning. Of course, there is no way Max could've known this because it's an obscure term, and then the argument just keeps going because both sides don't like what is being said.

- There was also a situation where Pianta had some bad stuff happening in real life, and Lely replied with a "*sigh*". Even without the language barrier it's difficult to interpret whether or not the sigh was being sarcastic or pitiful (I'm leaning towards the pitiful side though), so naturally the situation got worse. Pianta responded with an abrupt "fuck you", which kind of triggered Lely. What was different in this case is that the reaction didn't derive from a hatred towards Lely unlike how it was interpreted, it actually derived from another misunderstanding and a bit of anger from the already awful experience. Even though Pianta had no malicious intent, he said he regrets the lash and has apologised.

I think it's clear that these misunderstandings have significantly contributed to the arguments, and the fact that this has happened for a while now doesn't make it any better because there's a subconscious dislike towards the other side. The reason the dramas didn't end sooner is because nobody addressed this earlier, and therefore there was no common understanding between both sides to resolve the issue.

I also don't think Max's stress has helped at all in this situation either, which was caused by the continuous monitoring of the forum.

My advice:

- Firstly, to the members of MKPC (particularly the forum users). Please refrain from joining any dramas whatsoever. If there is something happening there is always the report function on the forum, and the mod's are more than happy to take a look at it that way. It's actually really convenient for the mods when the report function is used properly.

- To Max. I truly understand that the whole modding thing isn't helping with your mentality, so please take a break, and a long one if necessary. I think you probably take the role a bit more seriously than you really need to, which I don't blame you for in the slightest, but I'm a bit worried because it's affecting you. It's important to recognise that even though you want the forum to be the best place possible, it realistically will never happen as long as there are kids who keep joining and breaking the rules, so I would probably advise ignoring a few things. You're already a great moderator for the site, you've just had an unfair workload.

- To Pianta. I've already said this in DMs but maybe be mindful with the use of particular language for the reasons above, but I don't really need to elaborate since already you know what I mean.

- To Lely. You've already displayed you can be mature on the site, but there's a lot of things you still have to learn due to age (this isn't a bad thing btw). I can tell you when I was 12, I was a complete idiot, so you're already one step ahead of me. There's a lot of things that you begin to realise as you grow older, so you just need a bit more experience. Maybe in a year or two you'll be mod.

Conclusion:

So who is the bad guy?

Well, nobody is. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. I know both sides are more than willing to make peace with each other, and I hope this is much easier now that we recognise what part of the problem is. Rather than blaming each other for escalating the drama, we now know why the issue was never resolved fully before. (we can blame the English instead for inventing a stupid language)

I hope we can drop everything behind us for the sake of everyone involved, and maybe even the community. Hopefully the mentality for everyone involved will improve. Hopefully this post will end the conflict that has already taken too much of a toll.

And lastly, I didn't write this because I'm an admin of the site and needed to do this. I wrote this as a friend who wants to look out for you guys.

ok wow tox I get how important this is but seriously I think you may have overdid yourself