Before I begin I just want to say three things. First, I have nothing personal against Natoramius. He seems like a really good guy, and for the most part it was a pleasure having him on the mod team. However, there are certain standards a mod should uphold, and it pains me to say that Natoramius has repeatedly failed to do so. The second thing is, before we begin, how good someone is at speedrunning has nothing to do with how good of a mod they are. Natoramius is one of, if not the best overall Overwatch runner, and I completely respect that. However, that doesn’t guarantee good communication which is a vital component of being a good mod. Thirdly, for anyone curious if this has anything to do with the verbal fiasco that took place in our discord the other day, it doesn’t directly but that didn’t help his case. There are a lot of behind the situation scenes (as I will outline in this post) and that event was a mere display of his poor representation of the team.

Without sugar coding it, Natoramius will no longer be part of the mod team.

In the past, mods have been removed due to inactivity and I have never written a post on them. That is because it’s a more natural situation. In this case however, I feel I must justify this decision with multiple layers of proof, since it is such a drastic action to remove arguably the most active mod. Thus I will present you with the multiple scenarios that led to this removal. Some of them are straight up violation of the rules, lies, or simply acting in an offensive manner.

Situation 1: The lie of changing Overwatch’s theme.

So this scenario is a straight up lie that was not necessary, mainly because, Natoramius did something good, but for whatever reason decided to lie about it causing a problem among the mods. So a few weeks ago, Natoramius asked me if I had added a 4th place icon on the leaderboard, which I had not.

Proof 1:

From his wording and reaction it appeared as he had not either. Thus I assumed the other mod, Axends might have added it. However, after contacting Axends, he denied having done it. Since I was self-aware that I had not made such a change, one of the two mods was clearing lying. Thus, I contacted the srcom moderators and asked them to provide me with the log for the change. They did. To my surprise, Natoramius himself had made the edit.

Proof 2:

After realizing he had lied, and without revealing that I had the log, I decided to contact him once again, in case I had mistaken what he had said. So I asked him if he had changed it or if he knew someone else who had. His response was once again claiming that he hadn’t, and even played innocent, questioning if the verifiers could have.

Proof 3:

I then proceeded to confront him, told him he shouldn’t have lied, etc. At the end of the day, there wasn’t a pre-established rule for not making changes without consulting other mods so I couldn’t say anything about that. However, what concerned him is that he LIED. And above that, without any reason. That really stood out as something problematic, and at least for me, basically nullified his credibility. Nevertheless, I went ahead and made a mod chat (yes this is actually why a private mod chat exists) and also created a few basic rules that mods should follow, such as not editing the theme of the game without mentioning it.

Proof 4:

While the story would end here, I do want to mention one more thing. Natoramius went on to violate this rule by changing the srcom logo of the lbs without telling anyone. He did admit to doing it, but the rule existed by that point so it was a straight up disregard of the rule. Proof 5: So for this first part, he straight up lied without any reason and then violated a rule.

Situation 2: Self Verification

From the moment our leaderboard obtained its 3rd mod, self-verification for mods was banned. In order to maintain honesty, and provide an honorable example of speedrunning, mods on our leaderboard DON’T verify their own runs (keep this in mind as it will show up again towards the end). I could post a large number of situations where Natoramius verified his own runs, but for the purposes of keeping this post to the point I think two are enough.

Proof 6:

Proof 7:

Even if it was JUST these 2 situations, which it wasn’t, that is still TWO violations of the same rule. At this point I would like to once again state that as a mod you are supposed to set an example, and not only did Natoramius not do that, but he straight up went against the rules. You can’t ask others to follow rules you don’t follow yourself. Not much more to say here. Once again, this by itself is reason for someone to lose the position of mod. Yet, it doesn’t end here.

Situation 3: Verifying Invalid Runs

Once again this doesn’t need much of a description. The main job of any mod/verifier it to check to make sure runs are legit and valid. As a side-note, nobody is 100% perfect and a few times some situation has made it past all of us. This is NOT what this is about. In the case of Natoramius, it is clear that he DID NOT EVEN REVIEW certain runs, accepting them blindly.

Proof 8:

As you can see, this is a 22 minute run, yet it was verified 3 minutes after it was submitted. That means that Natoramius didn’t watch the entire vod. When confronted, this was his response:

Proof 9:

Laziness is not a valid excuse. There is no reason to verify a run the moment you see it if you can’t. If you don’t have time another verifier/mod will. However that is not an isolated case.

Proof 10:

And beyond that, there are multiple scenarios where Natoramius has actually verified runs where the real time submitted is longer than the actual video (as you can see below).

Proof 11:

Proof 12:

Once again, straight up, it’s not about watching a run and maybe missing a small splice; it’s about not bothering to review the runs, and basically not doing your job as a mod.

Final Situation: The Last Straw

So at this point, there are a large amount of reasons Natoramius straight up deserves to lose his role as a mod. I actually had started writing a post similar to this, 2 weeks ago, but I scrapped it. When Natoramius joined the team originally, he seemed enthusiastic, committed, willing to help, and kind-hearted. All of those traits are incredibly important to being a successful mod, and he had never given me a reason to doubt any of them before. Even with the multiple rule violations, I felt bad punishing a person who appeared to be trying. In this whole situation, this is where my failure comes in. I held Natoramius higher than I should have. Because, as it was proved down the line, he didn’t change. As you saw above, the same “mistakes” happened again and again, and his errors were only matched by his recent poor attitude.

While I said this was not the main reason for his ban (it wasn’t, everything above was) when I saw the events occur over the past few days, I realized that Natoramius really wasn’t a good representation for the community. While he personally claims he did not insult anyone, and that he only made two harmless “jokes” I will accept that and not even bring those two jokes up. Let’s look at everything else he said one thing at a time.

Proof 13:

Once again, if this was an isolated situation, it would mean nothing. But it is not Natoramius’s role to define the worth of someone else. His role is to be a good mod and set a positive example, which he clearly didn’t do.

Proof 14:

“I’m having a good time,” by completely disregarding everyone else. Once again, repeated behavior of disrespect, just because of his mod status he clearly acts like there are no consequences.

Proof 15:

Speaks for himself. Unacceptable for a mod to respond like that after the entire situation.

Proof 16:

Proof 17:

Proof 18:

Is offensive towards someone’s intelligence, denies it, then proceeds to make up an excuse, which is also offensive by questioning my intelligence (by the way I’m not English either…). These images combined speak for themselves.

Conclusion

As a mod, you are the community’s best. You are selected to not only verify runs, but also entrusted with complete control over the leaderboard. Being a mod is a privilege. And sadly, Natoramius has failed in every way to make good use of it. Natoramius has not only lied, but has also violated the rules multiple times, and has misrepresented the community more than once. His poor attitude reflects badly upon the entire team, and he has made zero effort to have proper communication with any member of the mod team other than his own friend. And above all that, after all the times I have talked to him and warned him, he has the audacity to threaten me by saying he will verify his own run if I don’t verify it (thus braking the rules once again).

Proof 19:

(For the record, the run hasn’t been verified for 3 days, 2 of those which were discussion on the rules of that specific category and srcom doesn’t consider something backlog for at least a week). With that, I have nothing else left to say. I am incredibly sorry that it had to happen like this, but if you abuse something, it can be taken away from you. Being a mod does NOT put you above others in terms of what is tolerated. So, my sincerest apologies, but I am taking the action that I believe is best for the boards.

As for this thread, I know there will probably be a lot of backlash/arguing. I will leave it open for discussion as long as the discussion remains civilized. Also I’ll do my best to respond to any questions.

+1

diserved. I really don't get why he behaved so weirdly.

he even said it was a good decision to ban him it seems?(http://prntscr.com/lb7gij). Did he try to get banned?lolz?

EDIT: or is it someone else? i'm confused