I was going to refrain from responding to this tangent again because it seems to be pretty offtopic but I think it's necessary to remind people that advertising a "competing" server to our members and regulars is in fact against EgN and is generally harmful to the community, no matter how you put it. In the past with EmD, for example, people were banned for effectively advertising EmD to EgN members and now in Matt's latest "State of the Community" (http://elevatedgaming.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=32780) it still explicitly not allowed and not to be tolerated. I personally have firsthand seen conversations of Indi and his staff doing this (which I screenshotted and sent to Advisors+ in a PM), and I also am aware that other various people have been approached in a similar manner. I haven't seen any evidence of Indi directly bashing our community aside from a few jabs here and there, however, he has in fact messaged EgN members to play on his server which like I've already well established, isn't allowed. So to say Indi hasn't done anything against EgN or that he's "innocent" really isn't an option, he did something well established as against the rules of the community, and there is proof of him doing it. This is why I urge you that if you've been approached; screenshot it and send it to Staff+ as evidence and they will handle it, getting Indi and related banned won't "fix" EgN, but at the same time there needs to be consequences or else we are just letting ourselves be walked all over like a rug.

Next, I would like the address the fallacious argument that's being used pretty frequently. I don't think anyone here is trying to say GP is the only reason for EgN's recent condition and most people know there are several other problems which lead to this situation and allowed this to happen. Just because people are primarily addressing GP (in a conversation mainly focusing on GP mind you) doesn't mean that they are saying only GP is the reason for our problems, it just means they are focusing in on GP during a conversation about GP... Please stop applying this faulty, straw-man logic to the conversation and focus on what people are actually saying, this is the only way progress will be made. Sarge, for example, I've seen accused of blaming GP for ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS, but looking back not too long ago he was one of the people most adamant about how our server is broken and how it needed to be fixed. It's one thing to say Indi did nothing wrong if that's what you think, but stop trying to put words into people's mouths if you want to have a real discussion about it.

Related to the last point, if you are going to participate in the discussion, please have your own opinion instead of just parroting what other people are saying. Both sides are guilty of this but I'd like to address specifically people who are a word for word repeating what Indi told them. I've had various conversations with Indi as of recent and every single time he went on about the same things, many of which are being replicated here. On top of the fact, many of these points have already been dismantled in previous posts and it's getting really annoying to see the same faulty statements being repeated over and over. I understand you agree with Indi but at least try to be original in your discussion, giving a copy and paste argument from someone else is along the lines of them telling you what to think or what to believe, and it doesn't really allow for any progression of the conversation.

One phrase, in particular, that's being parroted that I would like to break down is "It's their choice." Yes it is "their choice" to play on whatever server they want, that being said that doesn't mean how the "choice" was presented to them was okay. The original people given the "choice" to play on the GP server were the ones from our community and server that Indi approached. Yes, they CHOSE to play on the server, but that doesn't mean Indi advertising the server to them was okay in any way. Although it may be a little strange, I think a good analogy would be soliciting porn to minors. Just because it's ultimately the minor's "choice" to watch the porn, doesn't mean that the person who directed them to the porn didn't do anything wrong, he still broke the law regardless of whether or not it was their choice. Advertising other communities is not allowed, just because people "chose" to follow the advertising doesn't make it okay to advertise. This point is simply a red herring and shouldn't have been asserted in the first place, let alone repeated. This is why it's important to come up with your own arguments instead of just spitting out what people told you, you can't just listen to every word someone told you and expect it to be correct or relevant.

Lastly, I think we as a community need to focus on moving on and trying to branch out to other games. Source for a long time has been an inevitably dying game, it usually peaks at 8000 people and maybe sometimes 10000 on a good day (this is before you factor in the number of English speakers). The game is on a steady decline and if we want to swim instead of sink we are going to need to find other outlets for ourselves. I think Minecraft is a step in the right direction, at least for diversifying our game pool, but we also need to look into other games like CSGO, GMOD, etc (which we have been looking into / working on). We also need to do our part and support these servers when they are up if we want them to succeed, we can't just put up a server and expect tons of people to flood into it and want to join and support our community. If you really care about EgN the most you can do is support new servers and help them get a stable population when they are released. Participating on the forums and Teamspeak is good an all, but in order to bring people in we need servers. I agree something more should be done regarding GP, but depending on how you look at it source really is just becoming a burden for us, even though most of you love the game. Like I said before, if you have evidence of GP messaging you or others to play on their servers share it with Matt and Staff+ and they will make sure it gets handled, I agree we need to defend the community but it's also important that we look into and support other, better ways to uphold the community if you want EgN to succeed.