I support Ket's complete unbanning. To the admin and mod team right now, a temporary lifting of the ban would be a conflicting mess of optics for them
The problem is that this is already a conflicting mess of optics for them, regardless of if Ket stays banned or not.
In fact, I do feel that it would probably be beneficial to move the conversation forward if Ket does get unbanned, because that may accomplish a couple of things.
1. There will be less conversation about getting Ket unbanned
2. More time can be dedicated to discussing the topic, with Ket as a part of the discussion.
Whether or not Ket will want to talk about the ban, or to talk about the focal point of the topic at hands, we won't know until the unbanning happens.
Trying to save face at this point does a disservice to everybody involved, and we're well beyond this point.
It's about how to move forward right now, and we can't do this when there's this huge quagmire right impeding this progress.
Unpopular question, but why? The call for undoing the ban seems to be entirely emotional and not because the ban is in anyway unjust if the story is true. The rationale seems to be that she's too popular to ban, which is crazy.
If Ketkat has done what she's alleged to have done regardless or how popular she is, In my opinion she deserves the ban. People have been perm'd for less many, many times over on here and nobody said a word. The explanation given in Morrigan's post makes it entirely justified if the mods believe there is sufficient proof she did what they say she did. I don't have any reason to doubt them because I fail to see why admin would have banned Ketkat for nothing given that she's clearly very popular and highly respected in the community. I'm sure it wasn't a decision taken lightly and they must be pretty confident that what they say happened, happened.
The core of the issue is that she didn't get the ban as a sole result of her actions, but as a result of the staff not wanting to discuss the issue further, and in the end, did not even actually address the problem that was brought up because they banned all of the people involved who were bringing up the concerns.
It was clear, and transparent that there was no intention of actually addressing the issue, and the bans were as a result of silencing, and quieting down the topic in hopes of avoiding further accountability.
Ever since that ban from last week, there was no further addressing of the issue, those who were banned were in banned limbo, and those who had issue could only address it, but really, tip-toe around the topic in this thread, and it was not really productive as if we were actually talking about the biggest, and most important issue at its core.
At the end of the day, let's use a hypothetical.
Had Ket and others been banned, BUT the staff appropriately addressed the issue that were brought up, and were willingly transparent rather than hide it behind veiled statements of perceived privacy trusts that were broken, I don't feel at this point we would be in the place we are now, and those who were banned, may have even been unbanned by now since we would have had the opportunity to do so at this juncture.
It's not about whether or not someone is popular, the issue here was that the staff used their powers to silence someone they disagreed with, but did so in a way that hid their actions, rather than discuss them thoroughly.
Keeping these users banned on these false pretenses which we have already established quite clearly not in the best interest of actually discussing the importance of this topic.
I can't speak for Ket, nor any of the others who stood up in that original thread to speak their minds on the topic. However, if I were in their position, I would have been more than happy to take the ban, as long as the actual purpose of revealing those issues were then addressed, and discussed fully.
The staff has now shown they're willing to work with us on this issue, and for that, I commend them for reaching out and allowing this space to do so. However, instead of reaching out with a fist, they should be reaching out with an open hand, and dispel some of the perceived hesitation on their part previously in this whole situation as it has progressed.
We may not agree on this, but I do hope you can understand where I, and I assume, others are coming from on this topic.