I'm trying to stay neutral in this argument so I can see both sides clearly, but I was still a witness last night, so let me see... I still picked up a condescending undertone in DARK MASTER's
post. It reads as if he's playing the victim, which probably is not the best thing to do, period. I also want to point out that if DARK was baiting anyone in the shoutbox last night, it was Kitkat himself. Let it be known that the tension between DARK and Kitkat is not a one-way thing. While DARK does present himself better on the forums (than on skype), to a degree, I could see why what he did last night was baiting. They have a history--I don't know the exact details, but I do think DARK knows how to get under Kitkat's skin, and relishes in it. The way I see it, DARK baited Kitkat by playing victim (in this case, I suppose the "sexual remark" thing was a little out-of-line, but it's technically still sexual). Kitkat clearly was already agitated by the conversation at hand, and as a witness to this, I do think DARK thrived on the opportunity to push him until he snapped.
So, while this was baiting, in my opinion, I do think the infraction should be reversed, because the entire situation last night was... I-don't-even-know. Any mod action that is taken by a moderator/admin who was a victim in a given scenario is usually branded as a vengeful act, regardless of how justified it is. I'm not saying this particular action
was, but I know of some that were, and they still got questioned. I was uncomfortable with the topic because, one, it was out of the blue, and two, it went straight to
sexual attraction rather than just general attraction. But, the only person who can dictate if that were sexual harassment would be Snow, which I think she was fine with the subject. DARK did offer to change the subject, which I thought was nice of him, since he detected that I was kind of on-edge. Either way, I think it'd be best to reverse the thing and move on. Covering an entire page of this thread over something as minor as this is kind of overboard, especially since from what I'm seeing, the sides are drawn based on who likes/dislikes the people involved, which I think is pretty childish.
We are a team. When someone takes actions out of their own without informing the other staff you can expect people to be cautious. This has nothing and absolutely nothing to do with people who fail to see justice. The fact is this is something that happened out of the blue. No discussion. I'm not saying Kitsu is a bad staff member nor am I saying he is abusing his powers but communication is something that is needed. When you're at work you also expect from your coworkers to tell them what you are doing so others know what to expect. Not doing things out of the blue.
It's difficult for this to happen late at night, especially if it's for something that probably requires immediate action. This goes back to the thing about there being no one else around, and relying on mod actions of the person who was attacked. Depending on how bad the situation was, the moderator (administrator, in this case) is usually a little shaken and as a result, the judgement is poor. This alone should be the reason for the reversal of the infraction. I don't necessarily think Kitkat should have to pay the consequences for this slip-up, though, because again, I can list quite a few examples of this happening with other mods, in which their actions usually ended up being out-of-line and later reversed without any punishment but a slap on the wrist. It's not power abuse, it's trying to enforce the rules despite not being in the right mind.
One last thing I'd like to add is that the shoutbox during the wee hours (in my timezone, it's the wee hours, so shush), usually ends up either really serious about touchy subjects (such as what happened with DARK and Snow) or really stupid and nonsensical (like 20x stranger than it is during the daytime). Since hardly anyone is online, these sort of conversations shouldn't be that big a deal. For this reason, what happened last night really caught me off-guard.