I don’t want to downplay what Jar0d did. But I’m glad he allows us to use his case here, because it makes a much broader issue very tangible.
If we put the emotions around the individual case aside for a moment, what remains is this: a stakeholder who invested time, money and years into building a digital identity in Decentraland lost access to it. And speaking very selfishly as a stakeholder myself: if a system has the power to do that, I want to know exactly how that power is used.
When was the ban issued? What were the concrete reasons? Were there warnings or previous strikes? What evidence was considered? Who made the final decision?
I want to understand the rules of the platform I’m investing my own time, money and identity into. And I think new users should be able to understand that too.
Right now, there is no clear public documentation of what Jar0d actually did. Those of us who were around at the time have our memories, screenshots and old Discord conversations, but a new user basically has to trust us when we say whether the ban was justified or not.
I don’t think that should be the standard. People should be able to look at documented facts, understand the reasoning behind decisions and be enabled to form their own opinions when deciding whether this space is worth their time or not
For the record, i’m not condoning jar0d’s action, or requesting that his identity be released.
I am saying that there has to be a process when it comes to doing a platform wide ban. Foundation can unilaterally ban him on all of their scenes and I wouldn’t have an issue because we have no say in it. But to implement a total/platform ban would mean total inaccessibility to ALL things related to Decentraland: client, Discord etc. and that requires due process.
Just as IRL, both victim and perpetrator are given the right to counsel and defending themselves in a public court before being sent to the gallows, this should apply here.
And I’d assume that 99% of all misconduct cases will end up with a local ban.
I don’t feel you are making a good-faith argument. I will remind you that you are the person who used MY LinkedIn profile picture as your Twitter PFP while calling the Decentraland community “retarded” among a number of other horrific things.
But to the point of banning users and how that “encourages behavior that could harm the community.” As it stands, you can really only ban a willing user from engaging in harmful behavior on the platform, as Artista has been so eager to demonstrate.
The only thing stopping someone from creating multiple accounts and ruining events for others is the fact that they don’t want to hurt their friends to make some misguided point to an authority figure who isn’t paying attention anyway. Decentraland does not even have moderators with the power to ban users wallets working 7 days a week, as far as I can tell. It is actually more harmful to the average user for Decentraland to ban each instance of Artista. As it prevents users from being able to block the users one time and avoid having to deal with them.
It is arguably a better experience for users if Decentraland stops antagonizing vitriolic users and just empowers the community to deal with it using the tools they’ve already provided.
I’m not attempting to defend the PTSD fueld mental breakdown that resulted in my account being banned.
I felt that I had consistently been unjustly banned from the Decentraland Discord and treated unfairly by moderators and people in positions of power, which activated my nervous system and ultimately led me to act out, so I would at least feel like I earned the punishment I received. That is what happened. I’m not proud of that fact. I didn’t know I had PTSD at the time, though looking back, it is absurd that no one else in my life or I had ever thought to suggest it.
Being broken doesn’t make it okay to hurt other people, and while I think you can make a reasonable argument that I have never punched down in my life, I understand that if the people I’ve said hurtful things about, who happen to have a very meaningful stake in this platform, do not wish to offer me forgiveness, that is their choice.
Ah @JasonX I misread your sentence “unrestricted access to THE REST of the platform”. My bad. I thought you meant unrestricted access to the platform. The reasoning, other than him being my friend and I’d like him at my events, is because before he was banned he was building more than anyone on the platform while everyone else was complaining about client 2.0. I LOVE when people build on this platform because they are enjoying it. It costs money to transfer your assets to a new wallet to just be banned again by the foundation when they discover you made a new wallet.
Your LinkedIn profile picture was publicly shared. If you were so concerned about it, why did you have it there in the first place?
Funny that you feel you were unjustly banned from the Foundation Discord after making multiple attempts and threats toward Esteban, Yemel, others, and their families. You seem to have forgotten very quickly or maybe you can’t remember, given your PTSD
We all had a party when you were banned from the Discord. Everyone was so much happier afterward. New and current members started opening up more, and people weren’t afraid to share their opinions or talk about different topics
At one stage, you threatened the entire team, including the DAO and Foundation. I still remember it like it was yesterday because I was there when you were making those threats, both in Discord and in-world.
You will never be unbanned from Decentraland. Period.
Two things I want on the record, neither of which is about any individual case.
First — the Foundation doesn’t have to unban anyone, and this poll can’t make them. The DAO has no mechanism to compel a Foundation moderation decision. If people are voting yes expecting a reversal, they should know that isn’t what’s on the table. What a published framework does is make deviation visible. Right now there’s no standard to deviate from, which is the actual problem.
Second — on the “it’s their turf” comment by@3Point1Four. What constitutes what is the Foundation’s land is debateable. Before we build a framework where authority follows ownership, that premise should be checked.
From Building the foundations for a decentralized virtual world, February 19, 2020:
“The public LANDs that comprise Genesis City, such as the nine plazas and public road, equal to a total of 13,026 parcels, are now under the custody of the DAO.”
The same post states that all Decentraland policies, infrastructure, content moderation and assets are kept secure and neutral by virtue of decentralization, with the DAO as the organ through which MANA and LAND holders have their say over the platform. Content moderation is named there explicitly.
So if this heads toward a jurisdiction question — and bullet nine of this proposal asks exactly that — 13,026 parcels including every plaza and every road were placed under DAO custody six years ago. Whether that’s still the case is a checkable question, and someone should answer it before we write rules that assume otherwise.
I’m not claiming this settles anything. The Foundation runs the client and the content servers regardless of who holds parcels, and that’s real leverage no vote changes. But a framework built on “whose space is this” should start from what was actually written down.
I was going to write out the timeline of the history of my conflict with the foundation, out of a misguided desire to defend myself, but your own words are so unhinged that I can’t imagine anyone taking you seriously.
“of course I used your photo to say awful things, it was public” is insane
While I support the idea of the DAO developing a clear governance framework (recall we once had a DAO’s code of ethics and each decision made by the mods always led to further conflicts), such a framework would only be meaningful if the Decentraland Foundation agrees to align with and implement it. The DAO does not control every part of the Decentraland ecosystem, and significant parts of the platform and its moderation infrastructure remain managed by the Foundation.
In the case of Jar0d, he is not currently banned platform-wide in the literal sense: he can still participate in the DAO Discord and Decentraland forums, and he is not blocked by the Decentraland DAO or Regenesis Labs accounts on X. The restrictions appear to apply primarily to the Foundation-moderated Discord and Foundation-managed platform, areas that are not controlled or operated by the DAO, Regenesis Labs, or the DAO Council.
Therefore, before developing such a framework, it is important to establish whether the Foundation is willing to participate in, recognize, and adhere to it. Otherwise, even if this proposal passes and the DAO creates a comprehensive framework, it may have little practical effect and amount to no more than a non-binding DAO policy if the Foundation chooses not to follow, execute or implement it.
Thanks for digging this up @Existential14! I think both points actually get very close to what I hope this discussion can clarify.
I completely agree on the first one. This poll cannot force the Foundation to unban anyone and that is not what I expect it to do. For me, the important part is exactly what you describe: having a standard in the first place, so decisions and deviations from that standard become visible and understandable.
The LAND point is especially interesting tbh. If those public parcels were placed under DAO custody, while the Foundation today operates infrastructure that can restrict access to them, then ownership, custody and moderation authority clearly aren’t as simple as “their turf, their rules”..
I don’t think we should assume the answer in either direction. But I do think this is exactly the kind of boundary the next stage should help clarify: what belongs to whom, who can make which decisions and who ultimately has the technical authority to enforce them.
I can already tell this will open up a lot more work than I initially hoped but step by step
Thanks for bringing the source into the discussion. This is exactly the kind of context I was hoping this poll would surface!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this @MetaRyuk!
I agree that Foundation cooperation is needed for implementation. But given that Decentraland is still explicitly described as community-driven and governed through the DAO in the current Decentraland Terms and Decentraland Docs, I’m not sure we should start from the assumption that the DAO can only make a non-binding request.
The current DAO Docs still describe the DAO as Decentraland’s “decision making platform” while the technical Platform Moderation Docs show that platform-level bans require a valid moderator role, verified server-side. What I haven’t been able to find in the public documentation is how that role is assigned, who governs that authority or what process sits behind it.
So for me, part of this process is also clarifying: where does DAO authority end, where does Foundation authority begin and where is cooperation between both required?
One small clarification on “platform-wide”: the current Decentraland Docs use that term for a ban that prevents a user from entering any Genesis City scene or island room. So access to the DAO Forum, DAO Discord or X doesn’t contradict that technical definition.
Even if platform-level bans ultimately remain outside DAO authority, I still think such a far-reaching power should come with a transparent, documented and reviewable process. A framework doesn’t necessarily have to mean that the DAO decides every ban. It could define the level of transparency, documentation, criteria and appeal process the community expects from such a system
For what it is worth, I think there are some points worth clarifying from the perspective of a foundation banned user.
The DAO holds townhalls in the foundation discord server.
The DAO mobile app, and I imagine any other future products, still reference foundation controlled catalysts (I apologize if that is the wrong technical term) and while I can log in, I can not see any other users.
I do otherwise agree that this governance is primarily symbolic. Though you could argue that since the DAO is intended to one day run the entire show, it should be prepared for that occasion
edit: Oh, and I’m not blocked by dcl twitter, we jist unfollowed each other
Very valuable links you included here @toxicwaifu ! I encourage everyone to review. Perhaps instead of replacing what exists, we vote to create and include a non-platform wide ban transaction, which affects only Foundation/DAO owned land. This would be used 99% of the time for a ban instead. The harsher 1% Full platform ban used only for the rare instance that is deemed worthy of a platform-wide ban, which almost would never be applied. In the cases of artista and Jar0d, IMO they would fall under the 99% ban.
Yes, Decentraland is described as community-driven and governed through the DAO, and the documentation identifies the DAO as Decentraland’s “decision-making platform.” However, decision-making authority is not necessarily the same as implementation authority. Technically and operationally, the DAO is not the executor, nor does it automatically possess the access, permissions, or authority required to implement decisions involving systems outside its control.
My point is that, while a transparent, documented, and reviewable framework would be valuable, creating one does not by itself resolve the central implementation problem. We could develop a comprehensive framework with clear criteria, evidence requirements, review procedures, and appeal mechanisms, but if enforcement remains under the Foundation’s control, and the Foundation has not agreed to be bound by that framework, it may have no practical obligation to implement it.
The result could therefore be a well-designed governance document without a reliable mechanism for putting it into practice.
For this specific case, however, I consider the LAND owner’s request to allow the banned user access to their own LAND to be fair and reasonable. I therefore suggest addressing this concrete issue through a separate proposal, for example, allowing platform-banned users to access specified LAND when the owner explicitly requests it, or limiting such bans to Foundation-controlled spaces while preserving the autonomy of other LAND owners. If the proposal passes, it would give the community a clear mandate to present to the Foundation and request a practical, technically feasible implementation.
TBH Jarod caused alot of scenes than building alot of scenes
but you do you frenz, i agree to it when it comes to decentralization haha, but if iam the founder of this shit… il do the same, and wouldnt allow this to pass. perhaps do a neigbhodd ip bann hahah its like doing 9 troubles in the community but didnt fix 1, how many community members that you didnt know the name that quits because of this persona?? you will not know…
i see him as a spy from oither country doing congress as much as possible.. the opposite of progress
but step by step
