Announcement ZU Elections

[FlamPoke]

Wasn't planning on posting again after spending literal hours going back and forth with Aberforth (who, to their credit, tried to actually quantify the demotion beyond the conversation that was had in the pastebin) in the ZU Discord, but this deserves some more attention.

Tuthur's demotion should serve as a stark reminder of the politics involved in Smogon decision-making. SS continues to make hasty decisions shrouded by obvious bias and are content with disregarding meaningful contributions to the site if you dont bend at the knee for power hungry smods that provoke and instigate at their whim. How these trigger happy and insatiable assholes can continue to tear apart communities at their discretion without consequence demonstrates a willingness by those in the inner-circle to keep progress limited unless you're willing to concede to their demands blindly.

ZU as a community has grown under Tuthur's consistent leadership. He was a major driving force for development in all facets of the tier and community, driving conversations around tiering, tournaments, teambuilding, and resources as a whole. Without his influence I doubt ZU would be in a place to actually get considered for official status, even though his requests for how to do so have fallen on deaf ears over the years. He was also integrated into other communities, as evidenced by the support from PU and NU players and leaders who similarly question this decision.

The responses given surrounding his dismissal do nothing but prove he was being judged under far different conditions than other leaders are. His words and actions were micro-analyzed at a level that isn't sustainable for anybody involved at that level and the conflicts he was involved in were overblown in an effort to paint a picture that does not accurately represent who he was or how he acted. His responses to provocation were used as evidence of misbehavior and an inability to reason and conduct himself properly, but the provokers were given full impunity for their contributions in these cases. It is absolutely absurd the lengths SS has gone to in an effort to justify this shellshock of a decision that left an entire community perplexed about why an active and vocal leader was ousted on the cusp of becoming official (which, btw, is allegedly unaffected by this demotion, but realistically he spent years trying to get into the good graces of SS to get us there and their promises that this won't affect our ability to become official means nothing without actual proof of what the next steps are).

ZU now has a very big void in the way of contributions in his absence but I hope we can rally behind this to keep along with his vision of an official ZU tier. It's hard to be anything but discouraged at the moment, though...

 

[Mirbro]

I have neither words nor time... but I thought I should say something, as a ZU old I am. These words will resonate with many other things that have already been said (5gen, apa, diego, BA...). But, with this situation, more faces up front are completely necessary.

Tuthur might be one guy that is sometimes too direct and even controversial, but nobody can argue that you had the most important impact on ZU for the last few years. Not only when you got demoted, which I still think was not the fairest, you tried to come back for ZU's sake. And you did it! It is completely unfair that your straightforwardness, which has its own pros and cons, seems to be a turning point in this very slight balance of you being demoted, and that fast!

In personal terms, I think I have always had good harmony with you. I cannot recall a case in which we disagree to death, we have always found a way to talk and reach a consensus. And that's how a TL should be. I am really sad for this loss in the ZU community. Today is a sad day.

 

[Aurist]

He was also integrated into other communities, as evidenced by the support from PU and NU players and leaders who similarly question this decision.

I only have a small addition to make here but given there has been comment that Tuthur's contributions were limited exclusively to ZU, Tuthur has been a regular and positive part of the PU community for a while and I appreciated him for that as well as his work for ZU.

With that aside - I think it's flagrantly bullshit that ZU TLs are not afforded the benefit of official support from the site while also being held to the kind of standards of conduct that one would only expect from high level staff including official TLs. From what has been presented to us here and on discord, Tuthur was under a level of scrutiny that is completely unfair for the position he was in on Smogon.

In addition to this, we find ourselves once again (for the 2nd time in about a week let alone more than a week) in a situation where damage has been done to our communities by Senior Staff unwillingness to be transparent and thorough with handling potentially sensitive situations, leading to huge outbursts, rumours all over the place and a general loss of trust. This is happening too often you guys.

 

[Fardin]

It's kind of funny how as soon as you explained the context of the french pl, they just fell back on bringing up your old behaviors, which were already contended with a long time ago. + the fact that they use the old stuff to now micro manage you not even being allowed to say:

"eah ig i can fuck myself and i know nothing about what's happening" in the heat of an argument. this impossible standard ur held on is genuinely one of the more idiotic things i found funny in the logs (plenty more others but they were already addressed in this thread)

its a really careless way to handle things, but I doubt anything is gonna to change. just a nice little warning for anyone thinking about putting serious effort into contributing to this site. if they didnt even do the bare minimum of contacting Turt to get his pov about these stuff before already making the decision to kick him, despite all his contribution to the site, same will happen with others

 

[July]

I dont know Tuthur very much but Tuthur and I got to interact more in LTWC. As a host, I observed he was very motivated to contribute to PRs and was a great help. He also invited me to host ZUPL. Deeply saddened by what happened. I don't exactly know what happened. Just want to say tuthur if you are seeing this you are great guy and where ever u go and whatever u do, I hope you excel and reach peaks of sucess.

 

[Aawin]

Despite the disagreements that Tuthur and I have had previously about things in NU, I respect his dedication to discussions and voicing his opinions in our Discord. I haven’t really played ZU much, but I’m well aware of how he has invigorated the ZU community and has been at the forefront for making it official. The ZU community has been cucked out of a leader whose goals were to develop ZU to become a great tier and to foster a community of great people, which he has done successfully- something not a lot of leaders can say they did.

This decision by SS is eerily similar to another hasty action that occurred recently. It reeks of personal biases, which should never come into play when larger gravity issues are at hand. It really shows that SS decided to look at this through a different lens and punish Tuthur out of spite. I really don’t see what Tuthur did that was so egregious to warrant a demotion.

Ranting aside, I am hoping you stick around Tuthur. The NU cord has an evident vacancy without your presence, but I hope to see you continue to do great things for ZU despite this shafting via a poor decision by SS

 

[JukeInTheBox]

[00:23]dhelmise[OMs]: feen asked you why you were making a power ranking for a world cup because of the valid point of it being weird to rank teams build on ethnicity/nationality, and instead of addressing those concerns and the suggestion of doing team descriptions instead, you countered by saying the people hosting WC are weird for making teams built on ethnicity/nationality compete against each other, said it was too late to get new writers, claimed writing descriptions was harder than writing a PR, and calling feen 'petty' for boycotting prs because they were announced 'a month ago' when the sentiment att was they were team descs and not prs, and instead of trying to continue to talk it through, you said "yeah ig i can fuck myself and i know nothing about what's happening", which showcases the concerns brought up about your behavior in tense situations

not speaking to any of the other points--but i think someone needs to address the point being made here, because, quite frankly, i find it to be very gross. i'm not saying this to incite any form of vitriol, but i think something as inherently flawed and wrong as this needs to be spoken out against when it occurs.

ethnicity =/= nationality. the only way to make the argument that making a world cup power ranking is at all weird, due to it being 'ranking ethnicities' is if you believe nationality is inherently bound with ethnicity. this is, fundamentally, not the case at all. i am not accusing anyone who made this argument of doing so in bigoted way--i believe it was said shortsightedly and from an attempted good place--but to be absolutely clear, the foundations of this argument would be similar to someone saying "this brown person isn't Irish" or, look at the way news media is covering Zohran Mamdani, a brown American immigrant who won the NYC Mayoral primary, right now. your nationality is your citizenship. as far as i am aware, there is no ethnic basis for who can play for a WCOP team, only that they live there (as it should be). this is also, not mentioning, that countries are not ethnostates, they are not one single ethnicity. India alone has thousands of ethnicities all with their own rich cultures and histories--and this is true everywhere. how would we even begin to categorize a nation of immigrants like the united states? what about countries, like ireland, experiencing heavy immigration rn; how would we categorize them 30 years from now? i don't like the direction this argument goes at all, and i don't think it is becoming of the senior staff team to portray it in a situation like this as if it has merit or validity. to be clear, just as i am not accusing feen of having done this with poor or malicious intentions, i don't think senior staff have either. however, it needs to be clarified that there is not a valid basis for this argument. this is at best a well-intentioned, but ultimately harmful argument to make, and i think senior staff should be clarifying their position on this.

because of the valid point of it being weird to rank teams build on ethnicity/nationality

to reiterate, i don't think it would have been Tuthur's responsibility to actively accommodate this complaint. just because a complaint was made does not mean it should inherently be considered. i cannot speak to any other part of this pastebin, or any of the previous stuff Tuthur has been involved in--but if literally any of this demotion is based on this argument feen presented, i think a complete reevaluation of what transpired is in order here. the argument being presented is founded on an actively harmful belief that ties ethnicity to nationality.

one of the most beautiful aspects that i have always enjoyed about my time in the mons community is that i've met people from every corner of the world--i could be stranded at a random airport and there's a decent chance i would know someone who i could meet up with. just as the cosmopolitan nature of an online community like this is beautiful, i find the cosmopolitan nature of a nation to be this way as well--people come from vastly different places and walks of life, but we all add and contribute something to the broader display of our nation. the argument presented cuts away that diversity, and describes it in unitary language that i think is foundationally flawed at best. i do not like this and i don't think anyone in higher authority on smogon should be crediting this argument as if it has merit. it is meritless and it is wrong. AGAIN, i am reiterating that i am not trying to start something here, i am not accusing anyone of having made this argument or repeated it for malicious reasons--but that doesn't mean it doesn't require redress.

 

[LORD SAGIS]

Tuthur I honestly think you were a breath of fresh air compared to all of these SS bureaucrats. I'm sorry for your demotion, but the lust for power of certain SS members is getting tiring. There needs to be a public process of removing these users because they know they are invincible and will only get removed if they get caught doing illegal things that makes the whole SS look bad.

 

[Dead by Daylight]

After the whole 2-hour ordeal in the ZU Discord, I'm even more dissatisfied with the reasons behind this demotion. I'll just tackle the transphobia accusations that were thrown at Tuthur without evidence here.

I'll preface this by saying I harbor no resentment for Aberforth specifically (it is tough fighting off an angry mob alone). However, things like the following exchange illustrate why the backlash against the decision in the ZU Discord was so big.

Firstly, Tuthur is said to have "defended blatantly transphobic behavior" in the Smogtours discord.

However, when asked for logs to prove this, the following was said:

If you don't have logs on hand that pertain to your argument, don't use those arguments unless you find said logs. This instance is incredibly unprofessional, and the logs that were found by Alkione with the information Aberforth provided did not pertain to the case at all.

The Logs

View attachment 7A2B4A7F-7D4F-4693-8B05-44C9B8B35C9C.webp

Now, 1 log was provided nearly 6 hours after the logs were asked for. This is not Aberforth's fault - he doesn't deal with Smogtours cord, and I understand that. However, when only 1 log can be found, and that log is not even readily available upon request, it casts a horrendous light on SS and their investigations.

Bungling 2 major decisions in about a week and a half is not a good look, I'll say that much.

 

[czim]

Think I'll just give my 2 cents as the retired old boomer that I am, but who still deeply cares about ZU and its community. Sorry for any mistakes but I'm just typing this quickly on mobile

I read the logs and tbh my take is that most of the people on this website are young and/or maturing, and it is ok to not be your best self at all times during your presence in this website, especially if you contribute for several years and most importantly, show you care.

Me and Tuthur go a long way in ZU and the relationship wasn't always great, but I do like to think that we are fine with each other now, and he contributed a lot to the tier in the last few years (this is from what i've observed, but might not be super correct because my presence on forums and discord were diminished after my retirement). My point is though, why are you holding him accountable now for something that happened years ago? If he was on thin ice, at least you should have let him know. Because like I said before, I know for a fact he cares about his contributions to this website, so he wouldn't want to throw it all away.

I know ZU isn't official but it has been a great community to be a part of for years now, and this is not the first time SS has acted hastily in a way that hurt the tier, without considering how much effort people put in these communities and how this will affect the growth of the format in the long run.

Crazy that I made a forum post in 2025

 

[Jett]

It's fair to say at this point that Tuthur is the user which has the greatest impact on ZU's success. While we all praise your contributions after this announcement, we still probably undervalue how much you've done. Thinking back to when I complained about a failure to acknowledge the efforts of ZU's contributors, it is clearer than ever that this was a flaw of Smogon as opposed to ZU leadership at the time and similarly you were also not getting your fair share of praise. Do not feel like you owe anything to us and especially not Smogon.

It's a shame that SS cares more about what they think it means to look good and less about what it means to actually be a well run website. I hope this is a decision they'll reflect on and overturn or alternatively hold everyone to the same unreasonable standard. The logs in question are being used to frame you in the worst light possible. I've made the mistake of seeing people in bad faith before and I can't imagine how it felt being viewed liked this; knowing for instance tiering heads and their team probably disliked you but you still did your best to be as proactive as possible for ZU's official status. I've seen it several times in various discussions that some people including myself at times are just unwilling to say certain things cause of feelings or whatever, but sometimes you need a Kay or a Tuthur who is willing to be like X is the problem or say their bold take, even if it's sometimes hard to hear and they are almost always willing to looking for a solution as long as you are also willing to engage in a healthy discussion with them. Hopefully ZU continues to fulfill being a non cliquey environment by not being afraid sometimes to just say it how it is.

 

[Stories]

Okay I already posted and really need to learn to keep my nose out of drama, but I can't see these mentions of transphobia and say nothing. Tuthur is a good friend of mine and has never treated me differently for my open identity; he has made jokes about it before and sometimes they do not land (part of which I will blame a language barrier for) but nothing he has ever said is done out of malice. I consider him a strong ally not only because he is supportive of me and my friends, but because he is willing to talk about real issues and even make jokes, which humanizes us. I don't think trans people should be a group people feel the need to walk on eggshells around, and Tuthur even makes himself look like the goofball to make us feel normal and accepted. I can guarantee if his comments upset anyone and they actually brought it to his attention he would have stopped, but I really can't help but feel like those comments were just looking for fluff to add to the fire. If anyone feels differently please feel free to DM me but I can't stand seeing my own struggles being weaponized to oppress someone on a fucking Pokemon website

 

[missangelic]

I’m super late to this, so I’m basically echoing what a lot of other users have already said, but Tuthur has been the driving force behind so much of ZU’s growth and development for years. It’s really disappointing to see this situation unfold, even if I’m not like besties or close friends with him, since he’s a role model for growth and community integration and making tiers less unofficial. I really look forward to seeing more transparency on why this is happening now and the way it has happened, as I know a lot of other users in the community are confused and frustrated with something like this seemingly coming from out of the blue.

 

[Vaporeonds]

I was hardly the most familiar with Tuthur, but his contributions across ZU, PU and NU cannot be understated as some of the greatest during my time on smogon and far before. Huge credit to you for this tuthur, I can only say I wish I spoke to you more often while I had the opportunity you absolute legend.

It looks like what's happened with Senior Staff has left everyone a bit pissed off, but hopefully they respond with some clarity as to their decision and hopefully answer some of our questions, such as:
-What actually caused this demotion to be warranted instead of a warning?

-Did Tuthur get a chance to explain any of these points against him before a decision was jumped to? If not, why not? That does feel like it justifies some of the anger to this decision.

-Can you explain the decision making behind this being dealt with seemingly so quickly, and why incidents from a while ago were seemingly considered when they've been dealt with?

I apologise if this comes across as rude, especially because of my inexperience however clarity should come before the outrage, in my opinion.

 

[Fardin]

it takes a minute to lie but an hour to disprove it. i dont have time to go through all the bs said in zu cord, so i’ll just focus on the ltwc one since it’s easily the dumbest example and the one that tipped things over (based on the ban's timing), so it must be one the staff actually think holds weight, right? (it doesnt)

this feels like a case of throwing out a bunch of accusations with no context, so when one gets debunked, they just move to the next (already happened in the logs tut sent, and the discord shit a few hours ago). thats why i think its important to discuss every example being mentioned.

the more u do that, the more SS have to contend with the fact that they just lie a lot or misrepresent things

I wouldnt say the ban was bad or good overall, but the reasonings provided and the approach this was done in is as incompetent as it gets. (not contacting him ONCE about this alleged ongoing bad behaviour recently or to get his pov ONCE about any of the bs lies that were spread)

my best faith take is that a few mods had it out for tuthur, and because of his past behaviour, he was on a short leash so even something minor was bound to get him eventually. no one can be perfectly behaved 24/7. with that in mind, it makes sense why something as dumb as the ltwc stuff ended up being the tipping point. they were just waiting for an excuse

None of that is a necessarily bad reason to remove someone from tier leader if im being 100% honest, but u should just not give out examples that make u either look stupid or just a liar

with the ltwc stuff, aber himself said the only problem they found was how tuthur responded to feen'

"feen: And you're not a host so idk why I'm engaging in conversation with you regarding this ?_?
Tuthur: yeah ig i can fuck myself and i know nothing about what's happening"

to give a little context to that msg >

confusing countries with ethnicity is a level of ignorance and semi bigotry i dont wanna get into as others have already addressed how unhinged feen was being there with that take (especially in the context of doing a PR for world cup being weird LOL), but the fact that the convo was framed around something so stupid puts the reaction of tuthur into perspective. especially when he was asked by the other RU leader to do a PR

the sadder part is, even without context, the fact that SS latched onto such a small response and tried to frame it as something serious just shows how little effort they put into justifying their decision. some of the mods legit have a shtick of being rude and dismissive in general to regular players. this kind of policing of behavior is as stupid as it gets.

this is like a prime example of what i said originally where if they already have it out for you, all your actions will be hyper analyzed and taken more seriously than if others said those exact same words and get away with it, cause it wouldnt be seen as something bad at all

also

lul


btw, in the original logs, dhelmise took issue with the substance of tuthur’s response to feen’s “valid point” about ranking teams based on ethnicity/nationality being "weird". maybe they worded it poorly, but dhelm and feen thinking countries = ethnicity is a bigger issue than all this dumb shit, plus the fact that feen thought he needed to report that behavior to the upper stuff, or at least bring it to their attention...

if anyone should be punished or etc, it should probably be him with his lack of judgment, but thats besides the point
------------------------------------

the transphobic claims ended being just him "defending" a transphobe or w/e, but with the furthur insight on tuthur thanks to Stories, its ended up being another unfounded bs to just stack ur lies on with no context

 

[Pokeslice]

After reading the pastebin and spending hours last night going back and forth about this in the ZU discord about this, there's one line that keeps popping back into my head:

"been a while coming" according to who and by what metric? I'll tell you that this wasn't "a while coming" to anyone in the ZU community who appreciated how much he did for them nor was it "a while coming" according to the people in the plethora of other spaces he operated in on this site like NU and PU. So when SS last night tried to back up their claims yesterday, every single user in the chats saw through them for what they were. It takes only a cursory glance at the pastebin to realize that the real reason it being "a while coming" had nothing to do with anything of substance, but instead had more to do with members of SS not liking the guy and looking for something they could use as their trigger to get rid of him. A textbook example of a Smogon witch hunt.

And if you don't believe this is the case as the Staff, substantially prove otherwise to every user here who cares or is angry about this. Because from the general publics perspective, there isn't anything here beyond certain SS users disliking Tuthur and trying to justify action against him, something which clearly isn't holding up well at all in the court of public opinion. Every claim presented has been overblown or just perplexing while the logs to prove them have been laughable at best or nonexistent to the point that this whole saga feels much more like an unsuccessful smear campaign against a user that SS last night tried to have us all deem "controversial" multiple times in conversation last night to create legitimacy for what they did rather than a demotion that had "been a while coming".

Probably the most telling thing for me, even beyond the lack of real reasoning, has been how this has been handled. A former member of SS was granted leniency with an insanely serious issue involving things that could qualify for prison time this week by some members of SS who showed WAY WAY WAY (!) worse judgement than Tuthur showed in the Stours discussions being brought up, and yet one was given a lovely little stepping down thread while people tiptoed around the user being their friend and the other was immediately demoted without being allowed to defend himself and told he would have the courtesy of putting up a stepping down thread that was immediately locked and edited by members of SS in order to save face. It's so clear from this week that SS needs to reevaluate how they handle things because to everyone watching the events unfolding, it seems like you're either a part of the jerk and protected to some capacity or cast aside once they decide they don't like you.

If this is the standard of behaviour that TLs / mods are held to then you need to demote half the staff and senior staff.

In general, Django's post hits every single issue on the head that's far more articulate and concise than anything I can type up, but I want to specifically hone in on this line because it's by far in a way one of the most damning lines against SS in this case.

Part of what makes this so absurd is that if we were to apply the exactly same strict standard to everyone in a position of power on this site that SS decided to apply to Tuthur, a large majority of SS, TLs, and Mods would be asked to step down, many of whom are more "abrasive" and "controversial" than Tuthur is on this site on a daily basis. I won't go ahead and round up logs or names to prove it because I find that to be out of character and vengeful, but no doubt many users have a person or two in mind as they read this line. Point here is, either be consistent with everyone moving forward and apply this same standard or silently congratulate yourselves for getting rid of a user you didn't like and create a standard going forward that can be applied. Either way, there just can't be this perceived grey zone "do we like you" attitude applied to every member of staff if this site if the positions are to mean anything to anyone or if staff is going to feel comfortable, but right now, that seems to be how it is.

The reason that SS has zero respect on this site has nothing to do with jealousy or controversy, it's the lack of consistency and bungling time and time again in both their decision making and in their responses that has people on this site feeling distrustful. Going out of the events of this week, the main focus of SS moving forward should be on fixing how they approach these issues, because man has it been disappointing to see how badly everything constantly gets mismanaged...

========================================

I imagine it goes without saying that I'm angry about this and will miss you as ZUTL tooth. Despite us butting heads a lot over tour and tiering decisions, I find you one of the better users on this site and I genuinely enjoy talking to, arguing, and playing mons together. I've always valued your passion and contributions and I'm sorry they handled it this way.

 

[BaitWiz]

Hey everyone. Biggest reason why I didn’t made a post prior to this point is simply because I’ve been busy; work doesn’t stop for me with the holiday, so I’ve been digesting and processing as best as I can in the meantime. It’s frustrating to see a second case where communication wasn’t executed well between SS and a community whose leader they’ve removed, especially less than a week after the first one. I’m hopeful that once the holidays conclude we’ll have at least a bit more of a clear image of why Tuthur was demoted, but in the meantime I feel that I wouldn’t be doing him due justice if I didn’t join in recognizing the good he’s brought to the community.

Ever since I joined ZU, Tuthur’s been one of the most reliable individuals for me to go to for any questions or concerns; whenever I’ve had questions about hosting or decisions/situations I’ve wanted a second opinion on, he’s always been one of the first individuals I’ve gone to. I love to make fun of some of his tendencies and teams (looking at the Tuthur 6 of SS ZU, lol) but he’s an individual who always has wanted the best for the different communities he takes part in. When he was demoted from ZUTL, he didn’t lash out at the community but instead took it upon himself to try to improve and grow as best as possible, which is a remarkable feat that I feel very few users on this site would even be capable of in the first place. He’s been receptive of various concerns I had in the tier, balancing them as best as he could between the other commitments he had. He’s often the one who took most of the flack whenever things went through that were received more sourly within the tier, and he often missed a lot of credit whenever things went well; something that I think everyone (including myself!) could’ve done better in hindsight.

Overall, I want to emphasize that regardless of behavior outside of ZU and regardless of my gripes with him outside of the tier, Tuthur has been a force for good and improvement within ZU and it’s sad to see him removed from the tier without an immediate and clear explanation from SS, especially right before one of the biggest tournaments of the year.

 

[Grillo]

Cool timing for a poorly handled demote

 

[Lightniong]

So, I’m not the most experienced in ZU, only playing in ZU seasonal most of the time and not really talking with any of the community, but from what I can see, Tuther was an amazing TL who not only put in a ton of effort and almost leading to ZU becoming an official tier, which just shows the dedication that he has, but he also has had major impact on PU and NU as well. It’s clear through not only this thread, but through multiple other places that the ZU, PU, and NU communities really value Tuther and his contributions, and to me, he’ll continue being the face and the main driver of ZU, tier leader or not, if he decides to stay, which, if I’m being honest, with him getting fucked over by SS after workin his way back up, I woudn’t.

Again, I’m not really integrated in the ZU community, so I’m not gonna talk like I am, I’m just giving my 2 sides on things, which is that SS handled this situation very poorly. Plain and simple. From reading the logs, it just seems to me that SS was just trying to find literally any excuse to remove him from power, as most of the arguments hat SS brings up are not only misconceptions at best and just extremely petty at worst, but are backed up with either no evidence or twisted evidence to make Tuther seem like the clear villain in the situation. Plus, just accusing somebody of transphobia like that, not only something that can get him completely banned from this website but is a big problem in general, just should not be happening and sets up a bad precedent in the future. All I see from this peanut gallery of mine is that somebody / a group of people was just out for Tuther for some reason, and was just waiting for the slightest reason to demote him. This just shows how flawed SS is when it comes to making decisions removed from bias, especially when it’s clear they haven’t learned from a scandal showing the EXACT SAME PROBLEM literally a week and a half ago.

Now, Mistakes like this happen, nobody’s perfect, and I just hope we can all move on and learn something from this roller coaster of a ride. However, 2 big mistakes like this in the spam of about 10 days isn’t really the best look for SS, and it shoudn’t, so that they can actually take accountability and learn. I’m trying my best to look on the bright side and just trust that SS can learn from this and put actual measures to fix this problem this time, but it’s getting really hard to.

 

[Tuthur]

Hello,
Thank you everyone for showing support. That means a lot for me, as you rightfully mentionned, I've always cared a lot about ZU and put a tremendous amount of efforts and time aiming for its growth and prosperity.

Now, since I've been accused of much more problematic things than FCL and LTWC, and that some screenshots from private chats (smogtours server discord moderation chat) have been posted on the ZU server, I think it's fair that I explain what those two instances are.

As some might have been unaware, until yesterday I was a smogtours discord server moderator. When I was announced my demotion, I had already been demoted on forum and zu discord, but I wasn't on smogtours, which imo meant SS was fine with me keeping that position. There are a ton of smods who are part of the smogtours moderation team and have access to this channel (some actively participating in the discussions). These events were so unproblematic, that nobody told me anything about my behavior, but that I also kept that position until I resigned.

Transphobia defense accusation
On election night, Ox the Fox had a heated conversation with Alice and violet river on trans rights in the US, and he was banned for transphobia as a result. As a moderator I felt like Ox wasn't being transphobic, just overly aggressive (which meant I was fine with the ban, but not for these reasons). I reached out to a smod I trust in private message to know if they also agree with me on Ox not being transphobic. I'm left on read for several days, so I reach out to another smod who I also trust, who agrees with me that Ox wasn't transphobic but still being inappropriate. The first smod I talked to eventually replies and shares my point of view too. These two smods made it clear to me, they didn't want to defend Ox not being transphobic, and that's the reason why they are unnamed there.
Fast forward to a couple weeks later, Ox the Fox appeals his ban by stating he wasn't transphobic. The discord moderation has to talk about his appeal. If I remember correctly, we were first going to accept his appeal, until shiloh said we weren't because Ox the Fox was just spreading "anti-trans propaganda". There were no source to that being "anti-trans propaganda", so I tried to disprove these "anti-trans propaganda" accusations, by coming with non-transphobic explanations. I made it clear throughout the discussion that I didn't even agree with Ox's statements, and that my point was that he shouldn't be forced to admit he was transphobic. So neither was I the first one being argumentative, that was shiloh with his wall of text explaining why we shouldn't unban Ox, neither was I creating additional work for the moderation team, as it's litterally our job to review appeals in good faith. At the end of the day, Ox is still banned from the smogtours server and I didn't do anything more than this one discussion I had in the moderation channel as a moderator.

Misoginy defense accusation
Some months later, -Tsunami- (Shake) and many other users had a discussion on making a top 10 female players list akin to what was done some months prior. Shake made the following statement "I do not think there are 10 women who are competent enough on the sheet to belong on a top 10 list" and UT brought it up in the discord moderation channel as being a problematic misogynistic behavior. If I remember correctly some users agree and some users disagreed. If I remember correctly my only message in the conversation was "I agree with Finchinator" or something along those lines. I wasn't abrasive or argumentative, I didn't want to be seen as the annoying argumentative guy after the Ox' incident and let others defend him.

In my opinion, those two discussions were healthy and I'm not discrediting those who disagreed with me and at the end of the day, I let us decide as a team. One of my favorite author, Albert Camus said "Mal nommer les choses, c'est ajouter au malheur du monde !", which translates to "misnaming things, it's adding misfortune to the world!". That's something I believe deeply in; if we start calling everyone we disagree with "a bigot", then the "bigot" term loses its meaning. I, as many, personally don't want to engage with bigots, so it's important to me that this label is used correctly.

Since this thread creation, I was apparently put on the Do Not Auth list for "public outburst" following my ZUTL demotion. The only public message I made between my ZUTL demotion and being added on DNA list is creating this thread. This means that just sharing my demotion reasons with no edits, i.e. being transparent disallows me from being room voice. All of this, only one week after people learn that Lily was allowed to remain UUTL after sharing her Smogon account with a non-staff user, therefore leaking publicly everything senior staff has access to, and was even allowed to come back as Senior Staff just a few weeks later. I'm sorry, but the more Senior Staff acts on me, the least it makes sense to me.

 

[Sputnik]

Through my on and off times within this community you remained a constant and helpful presence. SM ZU was the first metagame that I truly enjoyed and you were there to help myself and many others who needed it. I don't think I can add much more that others haven't but I'm one of many that truly appreciated what you did for this tier. This is a huge loss for the community and I hope we get more transparency on the situation soon.

 

[sinnabyss]

Tuthurs dedication to ZU and the community as a whole is undeniable. Hes been a welcoming presence for so long, Even ust by looking at his contributions and activity in the forums and discord, you can tell that hes incredibly passionate about the tier and cares for it and the community. Even if i myself have disagreed with some of his decisions as tl (and have beefed with him many times), i still greatly respect tuthur. His dedication to regulating the tier and events to be fair and fun for everyone is felt greatly. He was a pillar of the community and losing him will leave a massive hole in not just ZU, but smogon as a whole. This whole thing has been blown out of proportion, and frankly, Tuthur did not deserve such a harsh punishment. Well miss you Tuthur. Thank you for all the things youve done and the hard work youve put out in the past years. Kobo power!

 

[Amaranth]

it's becoming harder and harder to believe the "we do this for the sake of the community" spiel when SS proves again and again that they are consistently unable to act outside of their own biases

"we are humans, bias is inevitable" is a weak fucking defense, because nobody is forcing you to exclusively promote people within your circlejerk to SS positions. you could promote literally anyone else instead.

I became TD because Eo Ut Mortus promoted me, in spite of not knowing me personally at all, and in spite of frequently disagreeing with me, because he knew I would bring a different perspective, and different perspectives within decision-making bodies are VITAL. I tried to do the same during my tenure, promoting some people that I respected but frequently disagreed with such as false (and likely others that are not coming to mind).

That needs to be the spirit that builds these decision-making bodies. Not bringing in more and more people who are already assimilated to the thought-monolith of SS, who continue to engage in this "us vs the community" attitude that SS practically demonstrates - all while proclaiming that they are actually doing it out of the goodness of their heart. lmao.

Tuthur himself was a fantastic example of someone who was in a position of power and he was making things work for the community, as clearly demonstrated by the outpour of support in this thread, while not fitting within the thought-monolith of SS. Voices like Tuthur's are CRUCIAL to reaching good balanced decisions. They don't always need to win, but they always need to be listened to. The fact that Tuthur has been overly confrontational in some occasions, if anything, should be a CREDIT to him, not a reason to demote him - the willingness to stand up and fight for your beliefs, even when they are unpopular and you will get in direct conflict with people over them, is a fantastic quality for someone who is part of a leadership team.

But SS has demonstrated they are uncaring for anyone who does not assimilate completely with the culture they have already established; and violently intolerant of anyone who actively opposes it. So instead we are here, with ZU being deprived of their functional community leader - and for what? None of the justifications provided remotely outweigh the good that Tuthur was doing for this community. It's mindboggling.

I sincerely hope SS rethinks this decision, and failing that, I hope Tuthur and ZU can find a way to continue his functional leadership in all but name. Badges and Titles don't matter for shit as long as the community continues to thrive, and I know for a fact there is plenty that can be done in that sense while not being an official leader. Good luck to you Tuthur and good luck to this community, you did not deserve this

 

[risin_glory]

I am honestly pretty dumbfounded and have never been very good at explaining my emotions but I will try.
Tuths and I haven't seen eye to eye since pretty much day 1 and have had rather conflicting opinions on most things. I also don't like how he does things at times

AND YET

I say this without a shared of doubt that you have been a wonderful and completely outstanding leader for ZU doing everything you could and it's difficult to even imagine a ZU without you. It is a fact that the foresightedness that u led ZU with is unparalleled.

I also hard disagree with you not being calm when you have created an atmosphere in ZU where people feel free and open enough to always pull you into a joke. If anything, I am a witness of your growth as a person and despite our differences you are someone I respect and look up to.

In conclusion I believe it's really sad and unfair what happened to you but more than anything I believe you will Inferno Overdrive out of it soon enough our beloved TUTHURNATOR!!

 

[LilyAC]

there’s a pattern that goes something like this:

1. Staff think someone is harmful
2. Person in question thinks their behaviour is fine, so they push back a bit (but may change their behaviour slightly anyway to accommodate)
3. Due to the pushback, staff now dislike this person and have a bias against them
4. After some time, staff take serious action against them, citing any reasons they can gather in that time period
5. Turns out almost the entire community disagree with the decision, so now lots of people are vocally upset
6. Staff double down on it anyway

IMO the main problem with the above is point 6. As staff, it doesn’t matter how many mistakes you make, as long as you're good at acknowledging and fixing them afterwards.

Doubling down, instead, causes damage to their PR, making their job even harder going forward, essentially shooting themselves in the foot. It’s a loss for both sides. On the other hand, reversing the decision in response to feedback would come across as honourable.

although I have no stake in this particular incident, I hope SS are able to prove me wrong and reverse the decision for the sake of ZU. Doing so would show real integrity, and I'd gain a lot of respect for them if they did. But my guess is that, at best, they opt for some kind of compromise, like “Tuthur can have his position back after x months of good behaviour”, which would be a waste of time that only serves to make the original decision appear as if it had a purpose