Didn’t ever get a chance to roleplay with you yet, but it saddens me to see you leaving like this.
I can tell you put a lot of heart into you’re posts, don’t know how others aren’t able to see it.
Wish you well,

peri, i was never a really part of windclan but i have always viewed you as a fantastic leader and roleplayer! i love all the opportunities i had to roleplay with you, and i wish you the best of luck on everything coming forward. it saddens me that people really pushed you too this point, but your mental health comes first and i respect your decision.

not only in roleplay but in life you were very supportive of me as i found out who i was, and i really thank you for that. i’ll never forget you! <3

It never should've come to this.

Are you proud of yourselves, WCC? Hmm? Are you happy yet? You've chased away Peri and Ember, you've done what you wanted. But guess what? You'll NEVER chase me away. This is my home as much as it is anyone else's. The people who did this know exactly who I'm talking to. We're not dumb, we're not stupid. Even our newest users can see just how much Peri cares. But you know what? WCC doesn't deserve Peri. WCC doesn't deserve the kind, dedicated, loyal person that Peridot is. This place used to be good. Keyword: used.

Oh, oh no. I'm not leaving. I'm staying right where I am. Harass me, bully me, I don't care. I refuse to leave. If WCC burns to the ground, I'll burn down with it, and then I'll leave. At the rate we're going now, I don't think it'll be long. There's three people in particular this is addressed to, but I won't call them out, because I'm better than them. I don't need to parade them with slander and lies and take away the joy from this site like they did to us. I don't just mean Peri and I. I mean everyone they've ever hurt, words or otherwise. It really doesn't take too long to figure out who I mean. I mean, there's only three people on this site who'd love to watch WindClan burn. Consider this a warning, WCC: stay away from them. Getting involved with them will only hurt you.

Is this really what you want, Staff? Do you even realize how toxic this environment has become? Are we the only ones who see? You continue to let them pollute our beloved site while chasing off good people. I'm ashamed. I thought y'all were good people; I still do. I know Staff can't want this; I don't want this. Tell me, what did Peri ever do? She lead WindClan better than anyone else, better than almost any other past leader. Olivestar ranks on the same level as Oakstar and Finchstar when it comes to amazing leaders; top of the chart. Fast, efficient, kind, devoted, easy to communicate with. Help me to understand what Peri did wrong. As someone who's served under three WindClan leaders, tell me why Olivestar and Peridot weren't the best? Olive was always engaging with her Clanmates, and Peri was always willing to help new members. When Olive was deputy she picked up slack for Ravenstar; when she was leader she picked up slack for Maplewhisker, while not stepping on either one of their RPers' pride. Peri gave each around three days to post the ceremony before doing it herself. That's considerate and efficient.

When new users have a WindClan cat in need of adopting, Peri, Holly, or I were always the first to answer. When King Falcon started their traditionalize WindClan plot (which, contrary to her survey results, she never tried to veto!) She happily assisted them by engaging in an Olive/Shrike topic. Olivestar told Shrikestorm that she was loner blood and wouldn't exile outsiders; how in the Dark Forest is that discouraging a plot? What did you expect her to say? "Oh yes even though I'm a loner, and so is my wife and the majority of my kids, I will send everyone into exile. This also includes all of Graybriar's descendants, which is half of WindClan, into exile because they have SkyClan blood!" NO! That makes absolutely zero sense! Why in StarClan's name would she EVER agree with him on his pure WindClan blood-only beliefs!? That's not discouraging a plot; it's acting IC. We're told all the time to make sure we act IC with our characters and not let OOC knowledge bleed through. So why the heck we're almost all Peri's negative reviews about that?

If we're talking OOC, then not agreeing with a plot is not trying to stop it. I don't agree with murder; my cat literally tossed some other cat under a bus. And that was my idea! So, WCC, what other excuses do you have for demoting Olivestar and chasing away Peri?

Oh right.

NONE.

THERE ARE NO REASONS WHY THIS HAPPENED!

I'll be the first to admit I wasn't the best medicine cat. I don't deny it. But Peri? I couldn't have asked for a better leader, WindClan couldn't have asked for a better leader.

So, WCC, I've only got one last thing to say to you all before I go about my day:

Was it worth it? Great StarClan, I hope it was. Because you've got a long time to regret it.

I've been lurking for a while, and I think I joined when the first drama happened... I think it was another user leaving? I don't really know what happened there. I don't know the details about this one either, but if this kind of drama is going to be commonplace, I don't think that I want to be a part of this site.

It's too bad, I liked the look of this place, and the community in it.

it's true that this never should have happened, for a multitude of reasons. but at this point there's no undoing what's been done, and all we can do now is try to move forward.

peridot, i'm sorry that all of this happened, especially the way it did.

i have a little more to say, and i don't want anyone to feel attacked, because i'm not attacking them, but i do want to talk about something i'm starting to feel is a real issue.

the purpose of the high ranks surveys, ever since their introduction, has always been (or at least it's supposed to be, from what i understand) giving people a chance to improve based on feedback; and it's my personal belief that no matter who you are one bad set of reviews shouldn't cost you your position without at least offering a chance to address specific criticism and improve. the entire point of the high ranks surveys feels a little like it's undermined in this situation, and admittedly any other where one bad survey was enough to remove someone from leadership (or medicine cat status). everyone deserves at least one chance to do better.

if the idea is there to give people a chance to see critique and try to learn from it, that opportunity should be provided; and if there are concerns, asking the relevant parties to explain themselves as well as working together to find solutions should be done a lot more often than it seems to be. you never know someone else's perspective on a situation until you ask, and sometimes even just a little detail you missed on your own can make you realize what the problem was in the first place.

(all this without getting into the risks and associated stress of having to replace nearly all of a clan's high ranks at the same time; to both the health and well-being of said clan and the risk of even more ooc drama that i think we all want to avoid at this point - i'm pretty sure we can all agree that where it can possibly be avoided, it absolutely should.)

Peri, I'm sorry you feel this way. You were truly the best of all of us. May Starclan light your path, wherever you may go in life.

I can't believe everything has gotten this out of hand, but peri, I'm sorry this ever happened. Since I've never properly been in Windclan, I'm not completely sure who's involved, but it should never have come to this. Nothing happening on this site should've pushed you to leave, and I hope we never loose a valued member like you again because of hateful people. I wish I had gotten a better chance to rp with you. We'll all miss you, no matter how well we might've known you. I hope you the best in everything going forward.

My official statement, co-signed by staff:

Typically we do not make public statements regarding why a person was asked to step down from a high rank position, but clearly today it is needed. I will go through all of the events of Tuesday night in as much detail as I possibly can while still retaining dignity and privacy for everyone involved. For that reason I will not be sharing the survey results that resulted in Peri’s demotion. Should she see it necessary to provide them, I will, but I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it that they exist. Also, before I begin… Stormy, I know this is a subject that is very emotional for you and I appreciate how passionately you defend your friends. When we talked in private I expressed to you that your response might have been too inflammatory, and I’m standing by that statement. I’m not going to condone you saying that the site as a whole is at fault when the issue is really only between you and staff. So while I acknowledge your frustration, I’m also going to say that we do not handle issues like this with long, emotional letters that pin the actions of a few on the site as a whole. I wouldn’t accept this kind of announcement from a staff member under my leadership, so I can’t accept it from you, either. I hope that my private messages to you as well as this statement will assuage any doubt that you have about my sincerity. Let’s begin.

After talking to some people on an individual basis I have come to a personal conclusion that this probably could have been handled better on my end. I won’t speak for other staff members on that, but as an admin I kind of have a responsibility to give my “vision,” along with Moss’s, for how the site should be run. Maybe we should have held my ground on what we originally wanted to do, but as you will see in the following paragraph, there were other factors at play that influenced our decision. Allow me to explain.

Peri’s survey results were not good. Full stop. People expressed a similar sentiment that she was unwilling to let WindClan be anything other than what Olivestar professed it to be and that personal plotlines were being halted out of character. We checked each response’s validity, since it was admittedly a little weird that they were all talking about the same handful of issues, but sure as we could see, every other high rank’s results were different in some way. They even gave different answers to “favorite color.” I have no doubt that the concerns expressed were true, and they outnumbered the positive comments left on Peri’s survey. So we were instantly concerned. We thought about what we should do and originally, that was a period of probation. We were going to give Peri some allotted time to improve, and if things didn’t get set straight, Olivestar was done. What changed our minds?

Precedence. The best way to avoid issues with discipline in 99% of cases to act based on what you have done in the past. It’s impartial, and in this case, it was VERY impartial. We went back to when a previous leader was demoted, a leader who was very different from Peri in character and out of character. The comments on their survey vs Peri’s were nearly identical. Staff at that time, as Moss and Maple will tell you, demoted that leader after one negative survey. Just one. Perhaps you think that’s overboard, and… yeah, maybe you’re right. But leaders have to be held to a different standard than Medicine Cat and Deputies on WCC, because they represent the health of 1/5th of the site. A leader who is underperforming is indicative of a clan that is underperforming. In the case of WindClan’s high ranks, we felt that all of them were struggling.

Additionally, we had been approached by 2 individuals who were/are in WindClan who felt that it was very hard to penetrate this invisible barrier on roleplay. They felt like you had to be “in” with the high ranks in order to have fun. We had been monitoring the situation for a while at this point, and when we took a step back we decided that we couldn’t sacrifice the wellbeing of the entire group to spare one person’s feelings. Looking back, perhaps that was a little insensitive. I might even agree with you that precedence wasn’t the right call, and that we shouldn’t have demoted even the first leader after one bad survey, but I need you to understand where our thoughts were Tuesday night. The sheer number of bad responses, plus the exclusivity some members were feeling, plus the fact that one comment of a similar nature was left on the survey before this one were all on the table.

Olivestar in character was not the problem, it was that the way Peri spoke about Olivestar out of character suggested to a lot of people that they should not try and create conflict or war within the clan; she discouraged it. One member expressed that they kept trying to start topics with Peri and continually got lukewarm answers. In the staff channels we commented on similar behavior as we saw it happen.

I want to make it incredibly clear that this was not a personal issue. We demoted more people than just Peri this week; Maple had to demote a personal friend. We don’t enjoy doing it. When we took a step back, we looked around at each other. Would we do this if it was Nettlestar? Flintstar? Wolfstar? Ivystar? Ultimately, as grim as it was, we all agreed: yes. If we had these concerns about any of our friends, we would have made the decision to demote them at that time. But looking back at how this wound up, if I had a reset button, I think I would have gone with my gut. As Holly eloquently put, the purpose of the survey is to spur improvement. But you can't put the genie back in the bottle. What's done is done.

Now, I might sound a little biased here, but I can only comment on my own experience. I will do my best to explain why we acted the way we did. After Ripped and I gave Peri her results, a conversation began in a group chat including Peri, Maple, and a number of people who wish to be anonymous. Immediately, it was no longer Peri and staff talking about her performance as a high rank, it was Peri plus a handful of (previously uninvolved) members talking to Maple about Peri’s high rank performance. From our perspective, we felt like we were being undermined. Of course, I'm sure this was not their intention. They wanted to support their friend who they felt was being treated unfairly. However, as we began to watch this becoming much bigger than one person, we went on the defensive. I think it's also fair to note that, for everybody, not just staff, emotions were riding a little high due to other factors. Ultimately, there was heightened anger and frustration on both sides of the discussion, and we were past the point of bringing up probation. Peri had already made her decision to leave the site wholly.

Peri, it's my understanding that leaving WCC was a long time coming. I'm sorry that you felt as though you had to leave, and you're by no means barred from returning. I would gladly welcome you back. I apologize for how this was handled and how it affected you. We try to think of things on a wide scale, and sometimes we forget to think of individuals. So I am sorry for any hard feelings we might have caused. If you ever choose to come back, I will do my best to help you feel welcome again. We don't intend to ostracize anybody.

For any onlookers, I won't try and tell you what to make of Peri’s demotion. I can only provide the perspective that I have, and my two cents. I've zenned out considerably from all of this and I'm not really very upset anymore, so I am 100% open to any questions or concerns you might have. We try to be fair, we try to be balanced, and it doesn't always work out. With every decision, we run the risk of somebody getting upset. I hope that in the future, we can avoid issues by having more communication between staff and our members when something goes wrong. I've been having some excellent conversations with people involved the past few days, and it has been a great help.

One last thing for the road. This message is most important: Respect is a two way street. We have noticed a recurring issue of people using the anonymous comments on surveys and forms to be mean or crass to high ranks and staff members, and I want to personally make it very clear that we're not going to entertain any of that behavior, not from members, not from each other, and not from ourselves. Should you give me a reason to do so, you will be banned for comments like these. This is not the first time we have seen this, and regrettably, I don't think it will be the last. Harassment is harassment, regardless of whether it's a regular person or a staff member. I would also like to point out that one of our staff members is a child, and up until a few weeks ago, I was as well. Plenty of our high ranks are also children, some of them not even teenagers. I don't bring age into things very often, but when we talk about online harassment and power dynamics, I do believe it's warranted. I would hope you would not speak that way to someone else in real life, regardless of how much you disliked them.

We can all be more mature than that.

But, for everyone else, thank you for your patience while we collected our thoughts. If anybody else would like to reach out, our DMs are open. WindClan elections close soon, and if the final results of the election look like they do right now, I think you'll all be very pleased with the outcome… ;)

-Grizz

Peri has given me permission to lock this and redirect you to her follow-up: https://warriorclancats.forumotion.com/t43433-to-clear-the-air#486047