I will also publicly admit that I recommended Gaf to both Dez and Bront and I'll also tell you my reasons.
Gafgarion is a nice, smart, friendly and helpful guy.
He is the kind of person that takes the time to explain stuff to newer players and I think that's a very good asset for a moderator.
He understands rules and setups and he sure knows a lot about the history of the site. When I look at myself that's something that I sometimes feel I'm missing. It's harder for me to catch 'well-known banned users' and I fail to comprehend jokes about stuff that happened 2 years ago.
Gafgarion furthermore always showed great passion for EM when we talked. He seems to genuinely care about the site and he wants to help out.
When I see the backlash here I feel bad that I didn't tell Deze or Bront about Gaf's 'history' with cheating, but to be honest I never felt like that mattered because I believe him 100% when he says he never did it. Plus, it could easily be found in the report system and although I can't be sure because I wasn't there during the conversation, it wouldn't surprise me Gaf told about it himself in the interview.
I am quite sure there are a lot of cheaters out there who never get caught or that cheat a long time before they get caught. However I'm also sure some people who are banned for cheating, never cheated. It is easy to write a pastebin in one way or the other and when you're on a hunt it's easy to see what you want to see. I'm more of an 'innocent until proven guilty' kind of person and Gaf is banned for only circumstantial evidence. I strongly feel he's been wrongly banned in the past.
Even IF he did in fact cheat almost 2 years ago I still think he has all the assets to be a great addition to the mod team.
That isn't even the full evidence, there was more proof but it was erased due to games being unspeccable, ronder was working on the case months prior to that pastebin.
As in both of them, as I assume they do confer on their decisions in hiring and firing staff, unless their co-adminship is actually something a bit more separated in that they each do separate jobs, but I don't know how it works.
deletedalmost 11 years
i think the only people who didn't know he cheated were me and bronto.
He was banned ages ago you wouldn't have even been around then unless you had some other account before LadyNemesis.[/quote]I wasn't there when he got banned of course. He told me about it.
Modding a cheater that didn't confess is worse that modding one that did. I think as a mod you shouldn't have been making personal decisions about a case that you (correct me if I'm wrong) know nothing about.
I liked Gaf, he was the leader of Zeal, my family at that time. That's why I haven't looked at the case, because I don't want to either have bias that makes me think he's not lying or believe he cheated completely and ruin my image of him. Part of me still wants to believe there's a chance that he didn't cheat and I don't want to ruin that. That said, had I been in your place I would have definitely not advocated the modding of someone who was banned for cheating simply because I believed him.
