So, this happened (it was addressed to a specific user, not quoting the ping here). So I just wanna make a thing really clear here: The pear wiggler, unlike the Caring Void, is not confidential. We move stuff there because we think it'll Cause Problems if generally available. We don't let people go look in the Pear Wiggler, because we have a lot of people who struggle with emotional self-harm issues who would not be able to stop looking, and would get badly hurt. But it is not confidential. What that means is: We can, and will if we think it's a good idea, talk about what was in wiggled posts. You are allowed to talk about it. Now, if you try to repost the exact same text, we're probably not going to let that just sit there being unwiggled and doing exactly the thing that was the problem in the first place. But if you want to share screencaps or cut and paste with people outside the forums, for instance? You are 100% allowed. If you want to show things that got wiggled, or mod explanations, to other people? You are 100% allowed. A lot of us have been on forums where moderation practice and policy created the potential for mods to pull some nasty shit and rely on secrecy, and I've seen secrecy-heavy policies abused by non-mods too. (Lookin' at you, drstevej.) And the answer is, no, we aren't having that shit. So just to make it super fucking crystal clear: You are always allowed to talk about what we tossed in the pear wiggler, and why. We're not gonna approve posts (or leave them unedited) if they have stuff like personal contact info, but if you want to talk about it elsewhere, or quote things said to you by mods, you are absolutely allowed. This does not, strictly speaking, prove that there is no sinister abuse happening in the Pear Wiggler. But it does mean that, if any ever happens, you can talk about it. There is no forum policy saying you can't. There won't be. Authority without accountability is some bullshit, and it will not happen here while I have my fancy user title.
Also, a friendly reminder that the majority of the mods have actually been abused behind closed doors in the past, and such manipulative accusations are pretty much tailor made to trigger and hurt people like us. It's cruel. It makes me feel extremely hesitant to do my job and take things that'll hurt people off the public site. If it were a true accusation then obviously I'd want it dealt with immediately, but it's not and I personally feel like they know that it's not. It's fucked up and it's fucking me up.
And yet! It's the kind of accusation that has to be a thing you can say if you think it's true, or even if you don't really but are that into pushing the point, so. There it is.
Yeah like, I checked with the thread owner to make sure they were okay with it being there because it's pretty demanding and invasive, but the sentiment itself is not something that we'll wiggle. I'll still call it out for being incredibly cruel in this particular case though.
