This announcement is in 4 parts. Four complete parts. So it might feel conclusive at the end of some sections.

TRANSPARENCY

I know many of you might be confused or angry or maybe some other emotions. I surely have felt a lot of those in the past week. Please note that I do NOT do any of this lightly. It's probably one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. TB means so much to me. And I know that's kind of stupid maybe to anyone else because it's just a website. But I've run it for 15 years - that's since the end of high school for me. It's home. But lately, and for actually quite a while now, it hasn't felt like it. And it's my site, it should feel like home if I want it to. At least, roleplay home.

There have been many cliques over the last 5 years especially and I thought that this mega-clique that seemed to have been created involving at least 10+ people right now was just because of people being left over from past cliques. It seems to be that the ringleader always goes - usually on their own, but only once banned because of a lot of rule breaking included in that. But others remain. So I figured okay this is a sickness, this is something that, if they work hard, they can try to change their thinking to not be like this. It's just their subconscious way of being on this site. But then things came to light that proved that's not the case.

Multiple people were actively spreading lies and slander about me and the staff (not even slightly based in fact either, I'm surprised anyone believed them). That apparently you get banned if you drop a plot with a staff. That has literally never happened.

These people rely on the fact that I keep respect for anyone who is banned or breaks major rules. I don't go telling everyone about it outside of staff. I have decency. But they do not. So they decide that they can just make up whatever crap they want.

So here, I will be fully transparent with all of you. These are the people and reasons why they have been banned, over the last 15 years:

Meows - Blackmail/threats

Marsi - Blackmail/threats (coerced by Meows)

Markle or... something like that (it was like 2013 okay) - Stealing from TB, mostly coding

Jami/Nova - Creating 4 aliases to get around site creation rules and continuously lying about it (faking talking to herself in the c-box with the same IP too); was given a second chance; copied word for word a copy site of TB - Literally every single board word for word copied and pasted and even most of the sign-ups like the jobs lists (even the order, which is a terrible order and doesn't even make any sense, I know that); Later it came out that she was also pressuring people to do very not PG-13 plots with underage kids, but all in Discord/PM, but it made so many uncomfortable that I didn't know about until after they were banned.

Quinn/Emerson - Stealing from TB, mostly graphics (also stole a character of an admin from HOS, which I told her about)

Rina - Multiple times on purpose ruining members (mostly mine) plots and threads maliciously and with intent (it happened so much); constant belligerence towards the staff (and yes, especially me) on the daily. It was not an easy decision to ban her. Because everyone else had been from stealing or attempted blackmail/threats. But it was her or me because I could not stand another day of my threads and plots being ruined or feeling like I was in a battlefield that I had no desire to participate in, every freaking day in the chat and on the site. And so, the staff chose for me to stay.

Also, to be clear, I've never had a plot with any of those people that they abandoned. Actually, no one's abandoned major plots with me really unless they go inactive. Well, one person did because they didn't like a rule change that I did as admin, which I thought was kinda crappy, but then they left the site themselves months later. They were definitely never banned.

Another lie/slander that's being spread about is that a member from 2 yrs ago or so is apparently afraid of me? But we've literally never talked outside the c-box or general chat Discord. So I honestly have no idea where this one is coming from.

And those are only the main things I heard because one of them tried to turn the newest staff member against the rest of us, backed up by people they roleplay with the most (which was a really stupid move but anyway). I'm sure there's more.

So here's me being transparent. Because, as I said, clearly people take advantage of the fact that I still treat rule breakers with decency and don't talk about it, so then they put their own spin on things.

We know of at least 5 people who are spreading this stuff around, both before and after the announcement.

I know that maybe you don't even want to stay anymore if there's only 17 of us here. Because we are closed to having new members. But believe me, I am so freaking angry that it has come to this. That they have destroyed my site by being this way and ruining most people's experiences. People have literally left staff from the toxicity they received from these members. And there are just too many of them to ban them all. I don't even like banning one person, nevermind like 10 or 15. So for now, we're closed to new members and to anyone who isn't absolutely great. Because this 'cliquey mentality' that so many people have right now, it's so vast. We can't just keep cutting out or hoping that the worst of them will leave. Because there will always be people left over with this same mentality when that happens. So for now, and I don't know for how long, it'll just be the people who are here to roleplay with everyone and don't want OOC drama or to harm other members. If you're reading this, that means that you are awesome and I hope you will stay with us.


PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL

I know, I went all full transparency. Put it all out to light. Of why people have been banned before. And have mentioned about this cliquey mentality that people have, which is far more than just actions. Honestly, I did think that setting a limit of threads per writer would help. But it didn't because it's more than just numbers. It's about actually making meaningful plots with everyone, not just having random small talk with a bunch of people and only exciting plots with certain people. It's an overall attitude too. And a clique, more than anything, want to act like they run the site (but without actually doing the work, of course). Just like some "mean girls" in high school or something. So naturally, actual staff are a threat to them.

Okay so yes that's more transparency of what we're actually dealing with here. And why they are all gone.

But I also want to say that we should still be respectful to them. I would prefer that you guys do not tell people that we aren't fully closed and that we are essentially secretly open to some people. I don't want to ask you to lie. But it honestly is not for me. Maybe a little because I don't want to get a bunch of threats or negativity, especially with my heart. I probably would actually die to be honest. But also, like how do you think they would feel? To first be upset that a site they like to write on is closed and then later to find out that no, actually it's just closed to them. It'll just upset people more. So please be respectful of that. I don't really expect it to be kept a 'secret' forever, I mean there's like 17 of us, but try to think of why you want to tell someone. Because it'll only end up hurting them. Just let them move on.


THE LOGISTICS

It'll just be Maintenance Mode for a bit. You're all labelled as staff technically, but without any powers lol, just so you can log in. Then later it'll switch to Login Only with Restricted Registration. Meaning that yes you can make new characters. But your account has to be approved by us first. Aka make sure to use your global account (I don't know why anyone wouldn't to be honest) so we can see it's you from the email.


MOVING FORWARD

Please note that we have no plans of slowing down. A lot of places go login only because the admins don't have time to update things anymore and just want to let the members still roleplay if they want to. That is not this case at all. This is a super weird case to be honest. There's nothing normal about a clique full of new people who try to sabotage staff and older members from having any enjoyment.

Dodeca will continue.

Liberamach plots will continue.

The new war will continue (well not really new, it's been building to this for a while). The newly officially established war will continue.

Honestly, if anything, we might even do MORE things because it'll take less time to update things with less characters. Like for instance, we might have time for more active OTM awards and likely Top Posters will not be that hard to count up. And yay more signatures for all! <3


I know this was a lot. If you got through it, thank you for reading it. And I hope you will stay with us. But of course, that's up to you. I know there's a lot less people here now for an unknown amount of time and I'm sure everyone will lose some sort of plot. 17 people isn't that bad, but still, I understand if you don't wish to continue here. I freaking hate drama and they all brought this out after literally just being told "hey don't be jerks to us k?" and getting all defensive about it and victim blaming. And then more things came to light. Which is why all of that drama ends now. Maybe it's better to deal with it rather than like half the site feeling crappy or targeted for negativity a lot of the time. But all that is done now. We gave chances. And believe me, I've also posted so many threads about this over the years that just fell to deaf ears. But they took that last chance we gave them and stomped on it. We had to go extreme measures, but believe me, if there were any other way, I would have done it.