An open letter to staff

The following article is an open letter signed by multiple individuals and groups, and is primarily intended for staff to read and consider, but we encourage anyone who wishes to be informed on this to read it as well. It was written with consideration of the perspectives of many people and their opinions regarding the recent mutes and deportations affecting several members of our community as well as the topic of xEndeavour and his recent abuses of power. Before reading, please keep in mind we are not calling any staff member bigoted or transphobic, as well as do not condone harassment of staff members (including End). Rather, we wish to address a larger issue of severe punishments, the current state of affairs within the server team and the growing apathy that's been developing within DemocracyCraft.

Additionally, this was written with the events in consideration before the official strike was announced, but I tried my best to update it accordingly. Go strike everyone and push back against the abuse of power by xEndeavour!

Foreword

Hello there, DemocracyCraft.

Today is a sad and depressing occasion where once again I have to report on something I regret having to. Similarly to reporting on the staff veto on the Pride Celebration Act, I wish to address something that deeply shook a lot of people in the DemocracyCraft community and caused great concern for us over at the Redmont Trans+ Network. Many have already heard about the recent mutes and deportations that have been issued to various trans people, including Jesseya, TheSnowGuardian and Artemis, as well as the now brewing strike due to the recent instances of power abuse by xEndeavour.

Due to various concerns brought up in relation to End taking on a more active role within the server again and seemingly beginning to exercise broader powers without consideration of the rules put in place, discussions have flared up once more in the public discord channels of DemocracyCraft, as many have publicly expressed concerns and discomfort in regards to the state of the June agreement and End's involvement on the server. In particular, those who had been affected last time during the June Strike made various public comments and criticised the situation evolving as well as staff itself, leading to the aforementioned mutes and deportations on the basis of harassment and toxicity. With the current power struggle and the apparent censorship of many, people were once again angered and wished for another strike as a way to advocate for the people who were punished and make staff rethink their decisions to issue such harsh punishments, especially towards trans people and members of our community.

Now with the strike on-going and many going out again to push back against xEndeavour, it's important to shine light on all of the events that have taken place recently and were leading up to this.

Background

As many are already aware, tension persists between the trans community on the server and xEndeavour, in part due to the deportation of three (at that time) trans women and one other DemocracyCraft member at the beginning of June. This already led to a lot of protests against xEndeavour for his staff actions and instances of power abuse, and resulted in him largely stepping back from day-to-day operations of the server. However, as End and Tech agreed upon, he is expected to return in June 2027 once the formulated agreement between them expires and he can officially resume his duties as a daily manager for the DemocracyCraft server and community.

It is not unreasonable to say that this whole ordeal, including the events leading up to the strike on the 7th of June, was a massive wake-up call for staff and made them truly aware of the dissatisfaction among the player base as well as the issue of power abuse within the staff team itself. A lot of people were hoping that, as a result of the large protests, staff would fundamentally reform itself, be more transparent with its actions, and allow itself to be held more accountable. This, for many, didn't just include End's actions as co-owner, but also the staff team itself so that the punishments they issue are held to higher standards and they aren't just applied to silence loud voices or people criticising the organisation of the server.

After the tensions cooled down following the proclamation of the new agreement, many of the people involved in the strikes, including but not limited to TheSnowGuardian, Cassie45806, Artemis, and juniperfig, received a no-contact order which forbade them from messaging End or mentioning him unprompted, and vice versa. This was a way for the staff team to ensure that the parties which were in "conflict" with each other avoided each other and didn't cause further discussions in the larger DemocracyCraft community. These agreements will become relevant later on.

For more reading on the topic of the strike on the 7th of June and the general background on how everything fell into place, I highly recommend the posts by Juniper here and here.

What took place exactly?

It was a big surprise for many to see xEndeavour make a return over the last two weeks and slowly participate in staff affairs again after his departure at the start of June. This, for many, raised questions, since despite him being removed from internal day-to-day management affairs, he publicly made comments confirming that he was able to view and read open tickets, suggesting that he was not entirely removed from staff affairs and could still view the activities of the team at work. Including orders from him to Multiman to close tickets, this sparked a large discussion within the Discord server, where a large number of people started to worry about the agreement between Tech and End being rolled back, and that End was planning to make a quicker return than promised only a few weeks prior.

Not only that, but with the recent owner veto of the "Willow Revivification Act" and the "Realer Town Rights Amendment Act", tensions rose even more. Both of these acts were already early on under threat of being vetoed by the owner team, as shown in messages by xEndeavour shared by President Multiman himself.

While Tech argued that these decisions were purely strategic on the part of the server administration and that, as such, they did not constitute a violation of the aforementioned agreement, that did not reduce the anxiety many felt with the agreement seemingly largely coming apart and losing any tangible effect. To many, there is now barely any noticeable distinction between the state of affairs prior to the 7th of June strike and following it, as End has proven to be still generally involved in various decisions, which apparently could all be classified as "strategic", and only refrains from participating in minor staff affairs.

This would not be the last instance of End becoming involved in disputes within the community. More recently, he made another change to the DemocracyCraft wiki by suppressing the “June 2026 General Strike” page and removing it from the homepage, effectively making it inaccessible to users. This action directly contributed to the 16/7 General Strike, in which Scassany called upon the Department of Education to suspend its work and protest what was described as infringements on the department’s freedom and the independence of the DemocracyCraft wiki. Additionally, in comments he made he suggested that as an owner he reserves the right to make changes as he pleases and that the Department of Education doesn't "reign supreme" over the wiki. These actions and statements are not only a massive violation of the agreement he personally agreed to, but also are a major threat to the stability of the server and the independence of the server institutions.

The resulting backlash and punishments

During the initial developments almost two weeks ago, many started out by simply criticising the state of the server in public Discord channels as well as expressing concerns relating to their trust in the server team, how they operate and how they use their powers. As the discussions got heated, many of the most vocal people involved, in particular various members of the trans community, who criticised xEndeavour and his growing involvement in server affairs, received a staff-issued mute or deportation. These punishments would however only fuel the distrust and anger within a lot of people, and cause tensions to grow as various members of the community became more vocal about issues within the staff team and the issued punishments instead of solely the state of the agreement between End and Tech.

Over the following week multiple heated arguments broke out, often involving both End and Tech, and as a result many individuals were once again subject to mutes and deportations, due to, among other things, accusations that staff was acting transphobic in the punishments they are issuing and that the staff team isn't appropriately reacting to the concerns that have been raised. The allegations of transphobia, in particular, became a major point of contention, as many in the staff team themselves heavily objected to any such notion.

I also personally do not believe calling the staff team transphobic or bigoted is productive or a fair assessment of the situation. Nevertheless these punishments were not only unfair and badly communicated, but also an extremely harsh measure to suppress the voices of many who were genuinely concerned about the state of the server. Not only did it scare a lot of people away to private servers to discuss their opinions there without the fear of being muted, it also sent out a cold shock that increasingly fuelled apathy and frustration within the community. Especially the people who had a no-contact order between themselves and xEndeavour in place were disproportionately affected, as their comments to public statements or criticisms were deemed to be a violation of the rules placed upon them. Following that, not only were most of the people who spoke up and punished trans people, but they were also largely women.

Furthermore, as the strike is now on-going many concerns seem to have been proven right, as many criticisms and concerns brought up over the last two weeks manifested into the current ordeal. Especially with the major points of contention being left unanswered and developing further, it only seems natural that people become more and more concerned about the state of affairs on the server and aren't going to stop asking questions. Whether or not toxicity justifies moderation is ultimately beside the point.

Our call to action towards staff

Following everything I've described and the support of all the people who signed this open letter, I wish to move forward with the following demands to the staff team for the future of DemocracyCraft and the continuation of a safe and stable environment:

• Address the concerns that members have brought up, ensure the promised June agreement between Tech and End is properly upheld, power abuses are properly held accountable and let DemocracyCraft move forward without the ever growing fear of staff repercussions whether that may be censoring the wiki, vetoing reasonable legislation voted on by the community of this server or restricting the ability for people to speak up about issues in public.
• Remove the outstanding punishments issued to all people, who were deported due to their criticisms of staff, simply expressed opinions in response to public statements by End, which are guaranteed to be safe as specified in the no-contact-order, or have simply accused staff of being transphobic. This at the time of writing includes in particular Artemis (4 months deportation), TheSnowGuardian (14 days deportation) and Jesseya (permanent deportation). If failing to do so, at least offering lesser sentences to allow them to rejoin DemocracyCraft in a reasonable time frame.
• Rebuild trust within the player base by recognising player concerns and acknowledging them instead of trying to simply punish people who are too rowdy and too loud with their demands, especially from the group of trans people who have raised concerns and are unhappy with the state of the server.

This server lives based on the motivation and care of its community. The bow cannot be extended forever, one day it will snap and people will not care anymore.

Signatures

The signees includes TheSnowGuardian, Jada, Torten, thewrench01, DrFunks, Fox Andrist, MJL, AverageAnnika, Cassie45806, Jesseya, Artemis, Caldiron Jon Un, President of Redmont Trans+ PostOfficeTower and Treasurer of Redmont Trans+ FloofyLunafox