I'd like to preface this by stating that in this moment, I'm not necessarily speaking as a member of the staff team, and that every statement and opinion made here is my own—no one else's.

This whole situation started because I made a mistake in how I handled a given situation: I acted rashly, with minimal input from others, and without thinking through the ripple effects beforehand (causing anyone to leave the community was never my intent, though I do acknowledge it’s not unexpected in a situation like this, and I certainly don’t blame anyone who chose to); not to mention how it must have made the person affected most directly by it feel.

I made what felt like the only decision I could make in the moment, based on the information in front of me; but there were other solutions to the problem at hand, and I regret that I didn’t at the very least talk it out with the entire team first.

I haven't yet apologized directly to the main person affected, though only because everything is still fresh and Ripped has specifically requested that she be left alone.

Though I think it’s safe to say that this has, at this point, snowballed into something more intense and with deeper feelings behind it than just that.

The ‘reformation petition’ includes statements taken out of context, issues that were privately resolved years ago now and do not reflect the person I am today, and a handful of things that are outright untrue; as well as assumptions about my character and my intentions. I've addressed some of these directly on the Discord already, but for those who aren't in it or have been avoiding all of this, I hope I can provide some further context. It's not intended to change anyone's opinion, just to provide another side to most of the things that were mentioned.

Some of those concerns and comments I acknowledge are entirely fair and deserved: I was decently absent from WCC during the latter half of last year, including from my staff responsibilities; something I have owned up to and made efforts to not repeat.

In essence: I have, for some time now, argued that for everyone (on and off the staff team), WCC should never be your main priority, in that it shouldn’t be the thing your life revolves around. I feel strongly that people shouldn’t hinge their sense of self-worth or their mental well-being on a cat roleplay website, and have stated outright that I think everyone should have other hobbies and at least occasionally allow them to take priority over WCC.

The ‘frequent activity notices’ are, for the most part, because as someone who has a lot of free time I feel the need to clarify whenever I won’t be constantly around, especially as an HR and a member of the staff team--most of these wouldn’t have been particularly notable or worth mentioning if not for those responsibilities.

As far as things that are just not true, I was never in charge of posting the Activity Check. I was briefly in charge of updating Allegiances after, after being the one to suggest it should be a specialized duty so that we can ensure someone is doing it, but asked if it could stop being my responsibility after I was promoted to admin (as I suddenly had more responsibilities). The comment about ‘pawning it off on someone else’ was intended as a joke, because almost no one has ever enjoyed editing the Allegiances after an Activity Check. I apologize that that joke fell flat, and it should probably have been phrased differently.

I certainly didn’t ‘drop my duties completely’, though: I was absent from the site during the week of last month’s solar eclipse for a real life trip (which was properly warned for well in advance, basically as soon as I knew it was happening; I told the rest of the staff team well before I put up my activity notice on-site specifically because I didn’t want it to get in the way of things operating as usual for WCC), which happened to coincide with the date of the Activity Check closing that month. As a result, there was a miscommunication within the team as to whose responsibility updating Allegiances was following the April Activity Check; and there was some confusion that it was still considered my responsibility, despite my earlier request to be moved off of it and stating clearly that I wouldn’t be available during that timeframe.

As for ‘there have recently been instances where she will claim she is working on something, and another staff member steps in and takes over’; I’m not entirely sure what that’s referring to off the top of my head. Most long-term projects were paused or shelved completely to focus on restructuring the team, so I find myself wondering just how recent this was--it’s something I know was brought up as a problem a few months ago, but it’s one that I’ve tried to address as directly as I can since then. There were instances where someone else offered to take over a certain thing, and I tended to assume they were asking because it was something they wanted to do or were passionate about.

‘Holly also has a pattern of avoiding direct conversation’ is in reference to an incident that happened three years ago. I’ve mentioned before that at one point I was banned from WCC, that’s not exactly a secret, but I haven’t gone into detail about it very often because I wasn’t the only person involved; as the screenshots can attest. This was the incident that led to that ban, the same post that was linked in the petition document. I will say that when I came back to WCC, resolving the issues that led to this was part of appealing my ban, and that at this point in time I genuinely believe everything that happened then was completely out of line--including the part that I played in it.

The ‘clan-hopping HRs and rigging character promotions’ incident is another thing I’ve talked vaguely about, without going too much into detail. This was back in 2020, and I’m pretty sure that no one else involved in that is on the site anymore. The reason I tend to avoid going into it directly is just because I don’t like remembering that drama; specifically because I didn’t even want to be a part of that whole mess. I was initially offered a deputy position despite currently having a medicine cat, and as I recall I declined (I don’t still have my messages with the other party during this conversation, so this isn’t something I can back up with evidence, and you’re well within your rights to not believe what I say). From my memory, they kept bothering me about it and begging me to take the position because they didn’t like any of the other options, and eventually I was worn down into saying yes, that I would do so temporarily (after killing the medicine cat in question, Mothglow; though she was going to die soon enough regardless) and step down after a few months--this was my mistake; I didn’t want to take the position at all, and I knew from the start that accepting it would lead to arguments about HR-hopping. As expected, it did. I turned it down publicly during this (the staff team at the time had ruled I could have accepted it, but it wasn’t worth it; especially for a position I didn’t want in the first place), but to this day I wish I had just kept to my initial answer.

The community atmosphere in the wake of all this, though, is something I want to call out specifically; because in comparison to how things have gone in previous years, it’s been refreshing to see people band together for a common cause.

‘Holly shows a disregard for the interests of involving WCC’s younger members’ is, presumably, about three specific things: comments made about how the structure of WCC as it stands is heavily dependent on utilizing Discord for communication and not being sure of how, exactly, to go about rectifying that without making things difficult for those that do use it (given that there are, at any given time, usually only two or three people who aren’t using the Discord for one reason or another); supporting a proposal to formally change the site’s rating to PG-13 (no one would be removed from the site as part of this proposed change, but it’s been discussed both because of things such as COPPA laws and because the content allowed on WCC has skewed to a slightly higher age demographic over the years); and ruling that members who miss the activity check (after a proposed amendment to it that was being discussed with Beta Testers at the time) would be subject to the consequences of doing so regardless of their age.

The statement of ‘always pushed for rules to be subjective or on a case by case basis rather than a hardline set of rules’ stands out to me, though. While one of the main goals of the planned staff restructure was to implement more policies and laws in place, I had an additional proposal: one that would allow us to uphold not just the written rules itself, but the spirit of that law as well to allow us to reduce the frequency of edge-cases and case-by-case rulings.

'Often brushed off concerns over HRs' activity' is, I think, referring to something specific. The incident I'm pretty sure this is referring to involved details that were not and should not be public (I received consent from the person involved to acknowledge this incident in this statement, but will not be providing any further details, as it's not my information to share).

Beyond that, as I stated before, I've been an advocate for people not prioritizing WCC over other things in their lives; like work, school, or friendships and other hobbies. I think that there should absolutely be standards that HRs and staff members are held to, but that they should still be allowed to take breaks, either for life reasons or because they just need some time away; as long as they let others know in advance and aren't dropping off the face of the earth with no warning (excepting an emergency), it shouldn't actually matter why they're stepping away for a bit.

For the last few claims I want to directly address, I’ll do so all at once. Specifically: ‘some site members are hesitant to approach Holly with concerns due to worries regarding retaliation; inability to face pushback and cannot deal with direct confrontation; power-hungry and totalitarian attitude’.

I can personally confirm that just about every single staff team on WCC, at least in my memory, has received more or less this exact set of feedback. As much as it hurts to admit, there will always be someone who’s afraid to come forward because they fear they’ll be punished for speaking their mind--I’ll even admit that I was that person for a very long time, especially after coming back; even up to the day where I was offered a spot on the staff team. I honestly think that this is, in part, a side-effect of power given that it has impacted every single staff team, but I also can’t guarantee that, as I’ve never been directly approached about this.

But I will state here and now, as publicly as possible, that I have not and do not ever intend to punish someone for stating their opinion. As long as whatever you have to say abides by the Code of Conduct, disagreement can even be a good thing--no community is a hivemind, and no community should be a hivemind. My main goal is for no one to feel like they won’t be heard if they come to the staff team with concerns.

The only staff actions taken following Ripped’s demotion have been to remove images that violated WCC’s Code of Conduct, and to deliver warnings to those who were harassing other members of the site. At no time during this have any bans been issued, nor do I intend for there to be.

As for ‘an inability to deal with direct confrontation and pushback’… I have dealt with those things, recently and quite directly. I realized how poorly I conducted myself with regards to my responsibilities on WCC last year in part because I received that confrontation from my teammates at the time during a group conversation; and when I considered their feedback, I realized that even if the delivery of it felt harsh, they were right. And after coming to that conclusion, I resolved to change and do better going forward. When I was offered the position of co-administrator, I took that as a sign that my efforts had paid off and that the changes I’d made were noticeable.

At present, I have no intentions of stepping down; in part because I take my responsibility to the site seriously, and in part because it would feel entirely unfair toward whoever took my place to leave them a mess that they would then be expected to clean up.

I’m doing my best to take accountability for my actions and the ripple effects they’ve caused, and if the site is willing to give me a chance to do better, I intend to take responsibility for fixing what I can. Once the current batch of staff interviews are finished and the new team is selected, my first action will be to interview each of them to decide who I believe would be the best co-admin; and to ensure that any future decisions aren’t solely my own. I want to prioritize including feedback from everyone on the team wherever possible.

Seeing so much of the community come together during all of this, standing up for the things they believe in and being supportive of one another, has been a silver lining in a situation that has been overall incredibly difficult to navigate. It makes me hopeful for the future of WCC.

I don't expect everyone to like me, or to think that I should be in charge of things. I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my split-second decision-making--I hope by now it's clear that I also disagree with how I handled the situation, and that I’m committed to preventing anything like that from happening again, but I’m also aware that words mean nothing without actions to accompany them.

Lastly, I want to make it clear that there are no hard feelings on my end toward anyone involved in any of this. In the end, I genuinely believe that everyone is only trying to do what they think is best; for WCC and for themselves. Everyone who left is welcome to return at any time if they decide they do still want to be a part of WCC.

If you read all the way through this, thank you for at least taking the time to consider my perspective. It means a lot.