Due to popular demand, this is post in the News Section.

The Hive Workshop Administration has decided to end Zero Tolerance at the time of this posting as we believe it has served its purpose. This is not to say that you can feel free to go out and break the rules, but rather that we will point out your mistakes and help you get along unless you refuse to, which will get you punished.
Currently, several people are banned from the site. These people were banned for breaking the rules while ZT was in effect, while some of the bans would have happened anyway. The majority of these people have been banned for a week up to two months and only very few have been banned permanently, so they will have the chance to come back rather soon.
If you believe that your ban was unjustified, you can request your case to be re-evaluated for another chance using the Admin Contact forum, however the chances of a ban being overturned are slim.
We will begin to assemble responses for the recent Q&A session (questions are to be posted in the forum Admin Contact) and post them in the Q&A thread soon.

~Keep on Mooseing,
Ralle

Greetings Community!

Due to the recent events, the Hive administration team has decided to hold a completely open Q&A session. We only ask that you keep it clean from spam & flaming and of course within reasonable bounds. Some of our policies will not apply to this session e.g. Discussing Disciplinary Action - but only in the official AUAA thread. The site rules still apply for every other section of the site.

The reason behind the decision to host a Q&A session, is because we feel many users have either misunderstood or have been misinformed about the latest events including the reasons behind the various disciplinary actions taken against some of our most respected users and former staff members. This has caused several false rumors to spread throughout the community in what seems like an attempt to damage the site's reputation. Thus we implore you, do not listen to any unofficial statements including those of former staff members. Some may hold a grudge and deliberately attempt to misinform other users. We've even had cases of real-life harassment. We say, it's a stab in the back from members we used to trust and we're very saddened and frustrated about this. Be advised that any threats of violence will be taken very seriously and we will alert the proper authorities.

Furthermore, you are also welcome to ask us anything about the upcoming Hive 2.0 and it's features.
Including but not limited to our future goals for the Hive website.

Note: The reason we start on the 18th is because me (Archian) is in Austria on vacation and haven't been able to respond or react to the recent events.

In other news:

We're introducing a new staff position: Resource Moderator.
Resource Moderators moderate all resource sections.

The new Resource Moderators include:

• 
  HappyTauren
• 
  Magtheridon96
• 
  Apheraz Lucent
• 
  -Kobas-

Others will join these fine gents in the coming days ahead.

Also, give a hand of applause to Pharaoh_ who has been promoted:

• 
  Site Co-Director!

Note: These changes are currently in progress and will be applied soon enough.

Hmmm.. I don’t know what to say, I am speechless at what has been going on lately, but I will try anyway. So please bare with me fellow moose as I make a long winded post.

Q) Users have been concerned about the bannings and feel that they are they were pointless.
A) Alright let me take time to address this concern first, I will be addressing many of them throughout this announcement, this all started when I demoted Rui, I had noticed that something should have been done a while back about some of the other people as well, they were demoted and those that caused dramatic problems were banned, allow me to explain:

There are two types of bans here, a site ban and a chat ban. Users who were banned from the chat, that was done because we needed the chat to be under control, we had constantly asked ex-staff to not discuss private stuff in there or for other members to begin causing drama and harassing other members like this, however it was never planned to ban anyone from the site, until people started creating dozens of threads. I am going to be honest with all of you, while the chat bans will most likely get overturned in the future if you have a light record or none at all (we really needed to calm down and to show them that we still cared about the rules) we will not be overturning the few site bans we have made, those be staying banned for what they have done, those users went above and beyond to cause damage to the site:

Here are the list of users who are perma banned from the site:
leet.firefox
Mr. Bob
Rui
wereguy2

Q) Why did you demote all the good people Ralle?
A) Allow me to answer this one as well, I would like to remind you first of all that, I have final discretion on who is on the staff and that I did not demote users because I felt like it, I had done it because they were honestly detrimental to the site environment and have been for a really long. Allow me to explain:

Rui: This one was really obvious to many of the users, he had been an administrator on a rampage, he had been reported for demoting staff, banning users, global ignoring, and breaking plenty of the sexuality rules, he had been called a homophobe in many of his reports and harassing other people, he did not even use his powers on the people who actually deserved it.

DonDustin: This moderator had been reported in the past and has been considered a troll in power, I had sent him a final warning giving him one more chance, on top of the chances I have given him in the past and asked him not to discuss private staff matters in the chat, shortly after receiving my warning, he proceeded to talk about exactly what I asked him not to do and got himself demoted.

Shamanyouranus: This user has been reported and given many chances in the past, the final straw was when he allowed wereguy2 to post porn and was a part of creating said porn. It was a spiderman.gif for all you naughty people who were interested in knowing.

anarchianbedlam: This user has been reported and given many chances in the past, he had met his own demotion the day he got my warning, I had warned him that this was his last chance and shortly that night after I had gone to bed, he had been caught breaking four of the site rules in the worst way possible: sexuality, vulgar, inappropriate language, harassing.

Q) Ralle, why did you temporary disable the chat? Are you not killing the community!?
A) I. . . what? Killing the community? The chat has been disabled for an indeterminable amount of time because of the following:
The chat has been a medium or a tool during this entire drama, allowing it to be dozens of times worse, and not just this one. I believe that everyone needed a cooling off period, this will give us breathing room in restructuring the staff, because the time spent moderating it, could be used for more productive actions.

Disabling the chat will hardly kill the community, there are about 150-300 users on daily and about 15-30 use it and it’s been the same people for years, the chat is not the site, in fact, it’s just a bonus for users who partake activity in the community. If you miss the chat, I encourage you to go make your own chat in other places of the internet (Some uses already have, go check them out!) until our chat is up and running again.

Q) Ralle, you have been out of the loop for years and have no right to do anything, I disapprove of what you are doing and I want to leave.
A) All of this is partially my fault, I have been out of the loop for so long because I have been busy, working on improving this site and personal matters. I would just like to say that no one has the right to question what I can or cannot do due to my activity on this site. I have always had the same goals in mind since the start of this website and no one has the right to stop me, the intent of creating a clean and friendly environment where users can come mod Warcraft 3, has always been there, it is just a shame that it has taken this long to enforce such intents. Can you imagine what the community might have been like without all this drama over the past few years?

I understand some of you disapprove of what has been going on lately and I understand, you must do what is right and I have to do what I feel is right, if you feel that you want to leave the site for a while or for good, we simply ask that you do not break the site rules to get yourself banned, you may simply just not log in anymore or for our more organized users, we offer that you visit us at Admin Contact where you may request that your account is disabled so you can’t log in, but once you do this it cannot be taken back for a year.

Q) Why The Dark Wizard?
A) Why TDW? Well, remember the other announcement I had made about the staff being blind and the staff ignoring the actions of others because they were friends or got emotionally attached and put friendships above the site? Remember that? I had stated that I brought The Dark Wizard in who is a good personal friend of mine and I required a neutral third party that would call it as he sees it and would put the site’s interests above all else. His guidance and advice have been invaluable throughout all of this and I have asked him to remain on the staff (He was only going to stay till his job was done, which was helping me clean up) and he has agreed and will not be going anywhere any time soon, so please stop questioning me about this, last time I checked I was allowed to bring anyone on the staff, and frankly this was highly needed.

Q) Ralle, why did this happen so quickly?
A) This was something that needed to happen a long time ago but if I had the chance I would have started this a while back and had done it over the course of time, that was the intentional plan, however from the moment I demoted Rui, my hand had been forced and people made it so that action had to be taken now, so waiting any longer would have just been detrimental to the site. I believed that the ex staff members in question would have just accepted the warnings in peace and we would have moved on with our lives, unfortunately as you all can see this was not the case.

Q) Ralle, why don’t you give certain people the chance to undo their ban, like Mr. Bob? Sure they may have been posting porn and harassing/trolling for years but who cares? They make wonderful resources!
A) See, I find that highly disturbing that people would even think like that, the price for having the quality of resources from members like Mr. Bob is too expensive and I will not be paying it. I would rather have a small community and some resources, than people like him who make some great resources, but because of that they think they are immune to the site rules.

Anyone who is leaving the site for good, may delete all their resources if they so choose, or anyone could delete them any way at any time, not just because you are leaving. You own your own own artwork/models. We don’t want your resources here if it means we have to look away every time you break a rule, even if you create the most beautiful resource ever, you are not immune to the rules, this also counts for donations and other services you may have performed for this site. Nothing here gives you immunity.

A few sentences above I said this but I will say this again, for those who were shocked at what you just read: Yes I prefer to have a small community that is kind and have mediocre resources than a large community that scares away new members and hinder the process of growth, this is not the type of community I want to be associated with. I will not be stopping in my efforts to continue making this a clean/friendly community and upholding the dreams and values I originally had in mind when I first created this website. So if you refuse to accept that, I just ask that you don’t get yourself purposely banned and just leave quietly. Oh and if you ask me if I’m sure about this, one more time I will say yes, I am super sure that I would rather have every one leave before I keep putting up with this.

Q) Something something banning for saying somebody’s name..?
A) Alright not that it matters anyway because the chat has been disabled but I still wanted to clarify, back when the chat was active that we did not ban people for just mentioning an Ex Staff member’s name. Those are complete lies and rumors created by users who just want to cause drama, I have sat there watching people mention some of the Ex staff members and how they were missed etc, and that is fine, what people were banned for was the fact that some of them instead of keeping it civil, started causing drama, stating how ex staff members, sucked, or how we sucked but with a lot more violence. After we had asked members constantly not to do that.

Q) Why don’t you allow me to protest, you evil dictator?
Recently users who don’t understand or want to acknowledge that the site is changing from what they used to know, began spamming this all over the site, to prevent more of you spamming this, here is what was posted in one organized collection, (warning some of this may be a bit offensive):

http://hiveworkshop.com/gfx/haxx/a.png
http://hiveworkshop.com/gfx/haxx/b.png
http://hiveworkshop.com/gfx/haxx/c.png
http://hiveworkshop.com/gfx/haxx/d.png
http://hiveworkshop.com/gfx/haxx/e.png

We understand that some people may have been afraid of the changes but what had happened above was not the correct way of expressing those fears and concerns, if anything that made things worse.

Q) Alright, I’m one of the members who is staying and is glad this is all happening, even if a bit abruptly but ultimately for the best, I do have one concern though, when are we going to hear about this rumored staff restructuring and new promotions, I heard that certain roles on the will also be outdated as the system is improved.
A) It is not a rumor, we are actually updating the way the staff functions however I don’t have much information to provide in this announcement, over the course of the following week, our community moderator will begin to provide information and keep people in the loop of what is going on, so watch out for his threads because he will be explaining all that!

Q) Do you regret what has happened?
A) No, this was coming for a really long time.

Q) Why is the thread called Zero Tolerance?
A) That means that the site is temporarily in Zero Tolerance mode, that means that we will keep banning people (not permanently unless they need it) without warning until we get things under control, we should not have to address any misconduct due to all the announcements we made, so we are to believe that any misconduct made after these announcements was done on purpose. If you feel that you don’t understand why you got picked up by ZT mode, please visit us at Admin Contact and we will review your case with you(Banned users can see AC) however there is a very high chance that we are not wrong in your banning because ZT mode will be very careful. Just don’t be shocked if you get temp banned(or if your offense was bad enough, perm banned) without a warning.

Q) When is Zero Tolerance going to end?
A) ZT will be disabled in the foreseeable future once everything is under control and once that happens, we will return to giving warnings first instead of skipping straight to the ban (There are temp bans and if the offense is bad enough a perm ban).

Now that I have addressed everyone’s questions and concerns, I would like to add a personal note here of feeling. I would like to thank everyone who has been cooperating with us during this entire ordeal, that has been very helpful to us and you can’t even begin to comprehend how grateful I am and how happy this support has made me and the staff. Thank again. I also would like to thank the users who have left/got demoted/banned for all their positive contributions to the site over the years.

~Keep on Mooseing,
Ralle

PS: All discussion of the chat being disabled and things from this should remain in this thread, we will be making an effort to keep this thread open and instead of closing it, we will be cleaning it up as needed. However we still hold the right to close it if it gets out of hand.

PSS: Users who spread the discussion outside of this thread in regards to the chat and stuff mentioned here will receive a one week temp ban, that is why we are leaving this thread open so it all happens in one organized location.

PSS: You are permitted to discuss anything you want here in regards to these topics, mourn what has happened, be thankful, or just express your opinion, but the moment you go off topic it will be deleted. If it happens to be offensive, it will be treated in accordance with the Zero Tolerance policy.