Note: If you have anything to add please share, we would like to have the opinions and context of everyone

## Timeline of the last week

1. Anti-HQ confessions and anti-anti-HQ confessions start rolling in. It's kinda chaotic, people from both sides were affected mentally. Two community members almost quit due to this.
2. Reese announces on Friday (Apr 12th) that he intends to resign from CRT post an election to fill his seat, to be conducted by Reese next Saturday (Apr 20th). *Note from Reese: Due to his ban, he will not be conducting this election.*
3. Reese decides to take a break from the Slack
4. Saturday (Apr 13th): Fayd instructs CRT in #confessions-review to start censoring all anti-HQ confessions, doesn't say this publicly
5. Later that day, Reese (@reesericci) makes a post in #confessions publicly saying that this was happening
6. A vote occurs in #confessions-review on Sunday (Apr 14th) right before Fayd makes an announcement, leading to little time to vote from CRT and so a low vote participation. The vote concludes with 3 upvotes and 1 downvote, which is extremely low participation & far from a majority of CRT.
*note from b: i replied to the message in #confessions-review to point this out but never got a response*
7. Less than 10 minutes after the message in #confessions-review, Fayd, the person leading this change, formally makes an annuncement about the change in #confessions, and makes false claims about a majority of CRT voting for this change, leading to a heated discussion
8. Reese is just mad at this point, posts that it was not democratic in an angry all-caps message.
9. Reese's initial angry all-caps message was deleted, it is initially thought to be censorship by an admin *Note from Reese: Unsure how true this is now*. Another post about it was not deleted after he posted it a bit later. *Reese's views: the decision was not democratic because there was very little time to vote and the announcement was made with only 3 votes for, less than the majority of CRT. He also argues that it's not valid because the community never voted on this policy change, nor was a PR submitted.*
10. The discussion in the thread of Fayd's announcement gets locked.
11. Around 20 minutes after Fayd's public announcement: Reese and Alex Park are removed from Confessions Review Team by Sahiti, as directed by Fayd, for protesting by allowing select criticism to be allowed through even after the announcement by Fayd. *Reese's views: He argues the change was never valid, and thus shouldn't have been kicked as well as this power never existing before - no discussion before the kick either.*
\

12. Community outcry erupts as a result, whilst Fayd deletes messages about the rigged election
13. Reese leaves the #confessions channel
14. Chris (@cwalker, who took on Kara's role after she left) posts trying to change the topic
15. Caen Jones and his alts add several spam bots to #hq, #lounge, #confessions, and #confessions-meta demanding "more transparancy [sic] in hq!" and that Reese be reinstated.
As a result, the signup page is taken down on the slack invite page.

16. Ajith (@notmysql) creates a poll for the reinstatement of Reese and Alex Park to CRT (with responses being anonymous)

17. Chris gets added to #hack-clubbers-united, the private channel Reese made that was an organizing group for democratizing/discussing greivances with HQ. He immediately sends "@channel aloha comrades 🥸" in that channel, then kicks everyone except Reese, who panic leaves the channel after seeing the message.

18. Chris contacts Reese to inform about his ban.
19. Reese announced he has been banned for up to a year and makes a room on Matrix to replace the Slack channel #reesericdotci.
20. Alex Park posts in #hq stating that Reese's ban is an abuse of power and he should not be banned. Chris replies and mentions that "stating an opinion is not a bannable offense".


21. Chris provides the full context around why Hack Club is not a democracy and why it is the way it is in #reesericdotci. He also provides the public explanation for his ban, which is available unedited below.
22. Reese deactivates his own account after this is posted.

## Chris' explanation for the ban of Reese:

*Source: #reesericdotci on Slack*

> Then it was my job to be in charge of community things (again… I used to be in a role like this some years ago. It's good to be back!)
>
> And like, immediately I heard from all directions that people are just absolutely sick of constant dumpster fire arguments in confessions. My entire mod team seemed about ready to quit. I start hearing about people who have just silently (or vocally) peaced out because they came here to be in a wholesome place where they can build things with their friends, and now they just feel kinda sad when they come here. I heard from a beloved alum asking me if hack club was okay because it seemed to be on fire all the time.
>
> And here is where I have to make one of those privacy/dignity/transparency tradeoffs… I'm sorry Reese, but I go through the commie team channel and see a trail of conversations and reports about conversations where people felt uncomfortable due to behavior that could be described as aggressive or escalatory. Or even simply just kinda… bad vibes.
>
> A significant portion of that behavior was happening in threads about how terrible HQ was or how you were facing consequences simply for expressing your opinion, so commie team felt trapped between our values of making space for critical feedback and their mandate to maintain good vibes for everyone.
>
> After you started telling everyone that Hack Club is violating labor laws and exploiting workers, Zach took a bunch of time to reach out to you with a very thoughtful series of messages about the matter, and you went around telling people that he tried to intimidate you into silence. I've read those messages, that isn't true and it bums me out to see things like that because Zach is honestly like the nicest guy ever (maybe tied with Max).
>
> There was a clear dotted-line drawn around a completely untrue narrative that HQ snubs you for inclusion because of your opinions. But we have actually given you a bunch of cool chances to do stuff. Like $10k was spent on OuterLAN. I picked you to host the AMA with Alec Watson. My understanding is there was even an internship opportunity on the table this summer? And in the moments when we have opted not to give you elevated responsibility, the reasons were never about opinions. But I still frequently saw this idea of repercussions come up, and then I saw it spread to other people.
>
> So as for why we didn't just tell Reese to stop… we kinda did, but it also seemed pretty clear that the more we took that route the more it would escalate everything. So we tried to address the matter by patiently explaining our positions, and trying to brainstorm solutions, and bring Reese into things, and none of it really seemed to help
>
> Was there some alternative superior way for us to address things? :man-shrugging:
>
> The ways we tried to address it—and we tried a lot—didn't go anywhere and sometimes seemed to make things worse.

## Reese's comments on his ban

*Source: reesericdotci 2 on Matrix (!TdaHrVtIvvgWzXiPSe:reeseric.ci)*

> i fucked up by organizing poorly and hurt people and myself in the process. [*Reese adds: i let my misplaced anger get the best of me time and time again, and it's what got me into this situation*] i need to learn how to organize constructively [*(even outside of Hack Club, just in my life)*] and become immune to the sowing division. i'm gonna go to a labor notes workshop, run this stuco campaign etc, really try to recognize and learn from what i did wrong. [redacted] i also need to treat my depression (i started meds, it's good also going to therapy will prolly bring this up there) so i'm happier overall so i'm less angry, etc.

> i did need to be grounded and told how my anger was misplaced and brought back down to earth - talking to chris was useful