Regarding Unvotes

As you all know, @gmuxx is a member of @noblewitness. Earlier in September, he stepped down from his position as a moderator on the PAL Discord server, home to the Minnow Support Project. The reasons he cited were the time investment between modding there and his other projects, concern over his health, and concern over the pervasive sentiment against @sircork. He left his position peaceably after informing the other mods of his reasons.

Following this, he had a conversation with @aggroed regarding his reasons for leaving. In the conversation, Aggroed laid out that he would be removing his support “from all those who work with and endorse Cork” until he was satisfied that Cork’s behavior had changed into what he considered to be constructive. The screenshots are pasted below so that you can see the comments in their context with the permission of @gmuxx.

Following this conversation, @anarcho-andrei reached out to several friends and colleagues who were receiving a delegation from aggroed and supported noblewitness, either by voting directly or working with us in some way. The purpose was to inform them. The decision about what to do with that information was left up to them, but all of us felt it was important for them to be aware of what could potentially happen.

Over the last 22 days, the following accounts have removed their witness votes from noblewitness:

neoxian
ma1neevent
juliakponsford
pennsif
acidyo
torico
meno
helpie
paintingangels
amberyooper
isaria
jrswab
techslut
krnel
dune69
nonameslefttouse
fishyculture
longsilver
sidequest
netuoso
jeronimorubio
perceptualflaws
chrisroberts

Users are, of course, entitled to vote for whatever witness they want for whatever reason they want, and the same goes for unvoting a witness. However, having spoken to a few of the names on that list, it is abundantly clear that at least some of these votes were removed due to social pressure for political reasons. This raises the question of why the rest of them were removed.

Given what Aggroed explicitly stated in his conversation with Gmuxx, he's most likely using his influence to force other users into making decisions they would otherwise not make. His sentiment toward Cork is abundantly clear, and he has sufficient stake to unduly influence other users into withdrawing support. This has nothing to do with merit based on work product or projects, but because of a personal vendetta against Cork.

If it were any other way, why would Aggroed refuse to support users simply because they work with Cork? What does that have to do with anything else they’re doing to improve the platform or build communities? This has nothing to do with informed choices based on the quality of the users supported. This is to inflict damage on others because Aggroed has a personal grudge against Cork.

This behavior is nothing more than bullying. Plain and simple. Aggroed has bullied other users into making a choice he has no right to force them to make. This isn’t simply bad leadership. It’s bad character.