Hello everyone,

This is my first ever announcement, and I wish it was under better circumstances. A few things need to be said about the future of EcchiDreams moving forwards especially after recent events. 

As many of you have noticed, @Tema has stepped down as a Community Administrator. Originally he stepped back into a more developmental role however he has since taken a break due to the ongoing problems, which included deactivating his account for a few days. 

I cannot promise that he will return to being a “Community Administrator” anytime soon. He has not made up his mind on that, however he will be taking a break from the site and focusing on himself and his own wellbeing. For those concerned for him, rest assured. I will make sure that he gets rest. He loves this site, and has poured over half of his life into it as @Casey brought up the other day. Also let me assure those who saw the status; @Illogically Logical will not be coming back in, in an administrative role. Not while I am here.

Tema made a conscious decision to leave out a lot of details from his status, and even though it was well intended, it doesn’t seem to have had the effect he hoped for. The reasons; he told me that he kept it light and didn’t make a further statement was because:

• Out of respect to the staff who’d have to deal with the fallout of what he had to say.
• Out of kindness to the community. 
• Out of a desire to not want fingers being pointed at any one person or cause.
• Out of concern that it’d start a witch-hunt.
• Out of a want to move through this transition period peacefully.
• Out of a need to convey how much he is disappointed with all of this.
• Out of a “self-respect” to not sound like a “whiny victim”.
• Out of worry that someone will end up bullying and abusing other people on his behalf.

While Tema is concentrating on his health and wellbeing, I will be doing my best in his stead until he makes his decision. As such, I will outline a few things to come in the future.   

Staff

EcchiDreams has grown into a large community with 200+ active Dreamers a day. Currently, there are only four active staff. This is unfeasible as it stands. The staff are stretched quite thin, and we all have real life obligations that often take priority. The staff here on EcchiDreams are volunteers who do their job because they’re passionate about the community and want to try and help foster a good roleplaying space. 

We have attempted to recruit more staff in the past however that has fallen through. Part of the problem is that it can be hard to find people to fill the roles. Admittedly, due to the fact that I have a personal passion for the site, it can be hard to entrust it to others to care for as well as uphold the high level of standards that we have for our staff. However I trust our current staff wholeheartedly. I could not ask for better colleagues and friends and I hope to expand the current roster to not only make the job of the staff easier, but to also continue helping make EcchiDreams a better place. I cannot give a timeframe at this moment, but when the applications go up, I will let everyone know.

Harassment on EcchiDreams

Let’s address the proverbial elephant in the room, shall we? Because there has been a lot of talk about the subject as of late and I wish to say a few things, as well as clear up some misconceptions.

The first thing I want to say; is that there is one group of Dreamers that are the largest target of harassment and that is the staff, with Tema taking the biggest brunt of it. This is not backed up by feelings, but backed up by data. This is what has led to him stepping down and taking a break from the site. I will not divulge any details, but he has been subjected to insults, slights, accusations and even vile abusive messages as well as death threats, and for a long time he’s just put up with it and dealt with it quietly.

Let me make this clear; Harassment of anyone is intolerable.

As such, I will now be far more firm when it comes to the harassment of staff as in the past the staff have often merely tolerated it out of a sense of duty. The staff are volunteers and do not deserve the level of abuse that they receive. It is against the ToS and I will be firmly cracking down on this especially as we are looking at bringing on more staff.

As for harassment of Dreamers, we have continuously refined and updated our policies in an attempt to better protect those that have been the target of harassment. After one particular case, Tema spent forty eight hours awake adapting the EcchiMates feature to the site to work with the other applications we have. This allowed Dreamers to lock their profiles to be viewable to friends only which would prevent harassers from being able to see their profile, as well as limit their view on who that person interacts with. The No Contact Order was created to be somewhat like a restraining order, with both sides being told not to talk to one another. If the harasser violated the order, then action would be swift against them. 

The last change that has occurred is that new Dreamers cannot immediately send an EcchiText upon registering. This prevents new accounts from being able to send spam to other Dreamers but it has the secondary effect of preventing Dreamers from making new accounts with the sole purpose to harass others. This is because whilst you’re a virgin dreamer, you can delete your account, whereas afterwards you can just deactivate your account, which are two different things. A lot of the abuse received is from people who register an account, send the abuse in EcchiTexts and then delete their accounts. His first concern was that of everyone else - not him. He asked me, “If they can so easily do this to me, then what is stopping them from doing it to anyone else? I really don’t want that. No one should have to put up with that and some people here are very big targets for it.” So we both thought of a way to get around the problem that would be fair, and yet something that doesn’t punish everyone else.

Despite what people think, we take every case of harassment seriously. But what we can do is often hampered by people's unwillingness to cooperate with us. If you are being harassed, report it. We cannot do anything about a situation that we know nothing about and it frustrates me that people accuse us of doing nothing, while not working with us on the matter. I understand that people might not like how we categorise harassment, but that is to protect people from false accusations which make up over half of the reports that we receive. For those cases that are absolutely harassment, punishment has been swift and utterly without mercy. Every single one has been banned without hesitation.

Another problem that seems to crop up often, is that people meet other Dreamers on the site and then take their communication off site before they return and report that they are being harassed. However, because the incidents happen off of EcchiDreams, it is out of our jurisdiction. We are not here to moderate what goes on, on other sites and platforms and it is unfair to expect us to do so. You take any communication off site, at your own risk. We outline very clearly in the ToS that we do not recommend doing so. Instead of attempting to deal with it through us, report it to the site or platform that it occurred on. They can do something about it, as it is their jurisdiction.

Discord

As I have outlined in one of my recent statuses, the EcchiDreams Discord has been locked down to be Read Only. Dreamers are able to view it for site updates as well as updates on site outages. 

For the time being, it will remain that way. But I have come to the decision that if I were to bring it back in the future, then I will be looking for dedicated Discord Moderators who will moderate it, instead of asking the site staff to fill that role in addition to their site duties. I will revisit this decision once things have calmed down and Tema has reached his decision regarding his position with us.

Final Thoughts

It has been a rough year for all of us. I sincerely hope that things get better, and that life gets easier. I am extremely disappointed that it has gotten this far, and I am even more disappointed by the fact that people assume they know what goes on in the background when it comes to reports and such and start spinning off their own narratives as a result of it and throw around unfounded accusation that question our dedication to the community and diligence in upholding the Terms of Service. You don’t and you shouldn’t even pretend that you do. We read every report sent to us; not just once, or twice, but as many times as each staff looks at it and we deal with it on a case-by-case basis, but if it's not reported in the first place then we can’t be expected to know what goes on in your EcchiTexts, and the like. We have better things to do than to read the many thousands of messages sent per day, and in fact as per internal policy we’re not allowed to read without ‘just cause’ which is a report or the consent of at least one of the parties involved in said EcchiText.

After seeing the torrent of abuse that Tema has been receiving, it’s left me heartbroken and furious. It’s absolutely appalling, and I expected better. No one deserves that, not even my own worst enemy… if I had one. As for those who expect every single word he says to be perfect and without fault; ask yourselves this - is every word you say perfect and without fault? Have you never said anything off-colour at the wrong time? I doubt it. On top of that he has social interaction issues, communicating his ideas or thoughts especially around abstract concepts with great difficulty, but at least he tries. Every single day.

For those who have been understanding of this whole mess: I would like to give a heartfelt thanks to those that have shown their support. I deeply appreciate it, and I will pass along your kind words to Tema. I know he didn’t want a fuss about this, but knew he was going to be somewhat unavoidable. I will make sure he gets the break he needs and hopefully he’ll return one day to work alongside us once again. Right now he’s getting a break from it all and just working on other projects that he’s got going on in his life. I have rejected his resignation and I will hold open the door for him when he decides to return, and when I think he’s well enough to return. People have come out of the wood-work to express their dismay and sadness about the whole thing, even people who have never interacted with him. To them; I say thank you.

Due to these issues; the End of Year update has been postponed. 

I believe that people seem to forget; the site is paid for out of his own pocket. He foots the bill, so that you don’t have to, we don’t and won’t ask or beg for your hard earned money. He is also the technical man, the one who knows how to install the software properly and how the server is strung together without him; I feel that this site would crumble from the inside out.

Please be kind to others. Things are rough enough, so please don’t pile onto it. Be kind, and look after yourselves and each other. I hope the upcoming holidays are good for you, and that the next year is better for everyone. 

Image Credit: nwzt
I love how this image encapsulates the chill beauty of a winter landscape. It is perfectly blurred, giving the impression that you are standing in heavy snowfall. It’s just so aesthetically pleasing that I find it rather relaxing to look at.