I need help.

My previous thread in this forum went largely unread, as far as I can tell. I did get contacted by a few supportive souls, though. One of them asked if they should call attention to the thread, but I was too anxious to agree to that.

Since you may not be interested in that thread before this one, I will make a very quick summary.

I have strong disagreements with the mod team, and their past behavior has made me feel uncomfortable being in a space where they have authority. Last year, I made an effort to discuss these disagreements with Mirdini. It did not work out and I felt even worse.

So, I have sadly concluded my only option is to leave. But there is unfinished business which has caused me to drag my feet on actually making my exit, and I have been struggling for far too long to attempt to deal with it. I have concluded it is more than I can handle on my own, so this is a request for help.

The first and most important thing is that I want to reconnect with my friends.
Due to emotional distress, I retreated from every part of this community, but in the end, my problems are with moderation, not with the community as a whole. There are people I've missed, and I've withdrawn from them. Nothing makes me feel worse about this period of absence and silence than how little I did to let people know I wasn't okay.
So, this is an open offer. If you consider me a friend, feel free to contact me somehow and we'll work something out about staying in touch. I plan to set up a Discord server just for convenience, but I'm okay with people not joining that and just talking to me through DMs if they'd prefer.
I wish I had the emotional strength to make the first move in contacting individual people, but unfortunately I don't.

The second thing is that I want to write up my complaints and post them here, so everyone can know why I left.
Unfortunately, going over the key events causes me a lot of anxiety. As a result, so far I've only managed to write anything at all about it by being much vaguer than I would like to be.
I feel it has taken me far too long to do this, and I cannot get over the hurdles on my own. I am looking for any sort of help that people can provide here, even if it's just lending a sympathetic ear and occasionally prodding me so I don't stall on it for even longer than I already have.

Third, whatever else I do, I intend to continue Swamped. I have been posting it on this forum purely out of inertia.
I want to set up my own webspace so I can continue it there, but transferring it over is a lot of work and I would appreciate  help with getting it done. Not to mention there are people here who have better design sense than I do and might be able to make the site look nice.
I may transfer other works over, but this is the main priority.

Thank you to anyone who responds.

Yeah...

At the risk of putting the unsaid into words and reopening old wounds in the process, I uh... I really fucking miss Sunspider. It hasn't been the same here without her, and I still occasionally cry about her, including, coincidentally, about an hour before I saw this post. I know things will never be the same here again, that at least some of what happened was her own fault, and she herself has said she's long moved on, but... I don't know. I just want to be able to talk to her and invite her into servers with my friends without it being a big thing, even if she never rejoins the main group.

Anyway.

I'm really sorry to hear that you haven't been doing well, Fogel. You and I never really interacted all that much, but you were always a kind of reassuring pillar of the community for me, one of those familiar faces that was always there, always at least a little active. I hope you can get well soon, and best of luck with wherever you go next.

I'm here to listen to shit if shit needs to be listened to. Stay in touch Fogel, you've been here for as long as I remember.

Acknowledging post read.

You've been a big part of this community for as far back as I can remember, it's strange and sad to see that time come to an end. I hope the steps you are taking will be cathartic.

Queue: Homework. Destress/gather energy. Gather thoughts. Post thoughts.

The events of 2019 were emotionally exhausting. I've certainly been less active myself.

If the act of writing them down is difficult, sometimes changing your method can help get out of your mental block a bit. My preferred method is speaking (recording) then transcribing and editing. Freewriting by hand might also work for you, or speaking with someone else to get the core ideas down.

I'm no expert on webspaces, but last I heard Wordpress was competent and accessible.

Regarding the first post...

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SpoilerWithout being privy to your complaints about the moderation decisions or what the realized fears of contacting a moderator were, I'm left to guess and speculate. Were they they things you mention happening? (-Not feeling you're being taken seriously, -Long wait between responses, -Speaking with the other moderators without permission to share your private conversation)

Regardless if it's about Decision X or potential future cases, the impression I came away with was a desire to relitigate, or for a second moderator team to go over decisions/moderator actions again? Lodge a complaint about a specific moderator? I guess if you have permission from the people involved and people willing to read through all the conversations, but I don't know how that gets around a 'who watches the watchman' concern short of putting things out into the public square?

Hiring the services of a real-life detective/mediator is the solution that comes to mind for having a person experienced in interpersonal conflict resolution with no existing ties to or stakes in the community, which makes it a great narrative device that I have no frame of reference for how such things work/are initiated/handled in real life.

I'm trying to give this thought and not be flippant or callous (And almost certainly failing. I know a detective is unlikely as a 'real solution' but is it in the right ballpark? Am I completely off base with my current interpretation?), though when I have nothing helpful to say I am sorely tempted to say nothing, as I did when you made your first post. I'm tired. I don't think I'm a particularly level-headed person. The task of trying to untangle and interpret other people's interpersonal webs makes me want to curl up and cry. And I've been writing this for too long with nothing helpful or good to say so I'm just going to hit post

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SpoilerJust for clarity: I have an actual webspace. That part is no problem. It's making decisions about functionality and layout and such that I feel in over my head on, as well as the actual work of moving things over.

On the matters pushing me to leave: At this point, the value of overturning specific decisions would be mainly symbolic, as it would unlikely change anything for the individual people involved. Being symbolic doesn't mean it's unimportant, but if that were the only hurdle, I would still feel able to function here.
My aims at this stage are to get certain facts I consider important out in the open, and to address what I see as severe failures of the moderation process. The issue that I am struggling the most with is that currently, there is no way to make complaints and have them acted on without involving the same people responsible for those failures.
Mirdini, in his last message to me, suggested I was unwilling to stay because I disagreed with a specific decision. This is wrong. I am unwilling to stay because I cannot feel comfortable in an environment governed by such a faulty process.

The primary issue up to now has been simply that I cannot do this on my own. But I have difficulty opening up in general, and the whole series of events has damaged my ability to trust people. This has made it very hard for me to reach out.
I have been talking to a few people about this, but they weren't around consistently, so that made it harder to do anything when I couldn't talk to someone. It would also be useful if it turned out there were some portion of the work somebody else could do, just because that would be less weight on me specifically, but I'm not sure I have any specific requests for what they could do.

I really appreciate that you tried to say something. It's okay if it wasn't as helpful as you hoped.
There's a reason I mentioned reconnecting with people separately from asking for direct support. I just want to get back in touch with my friends, and I don't want to tie that up in settling my accounts here.

Just in general, in case anybody has any doubts: If you want to talk to me, talk to me. I won't bring up any of this mess if you don't want me to.

i saw the last post, but i didn't know what to say so i said nothing. i've drifted(?) from eagle time in general because it's not too active anymore, and i think i got here "late" so i didn't really have time to interact and get to know anyone. i'm not too sure what to do to help, but i might be open to listen on discord

I have zero idea of what this is about and it's probably none of my business but the thing that is extremely important to me is your well being because you are a good friend and a cool person. I'm sorry for not reaching out as often. I might not be able to help with anything regarding those past issues but maybe I can help you rebuild and reconnect, I'll be in touch with ya.