Tetsugate

Location
 Result
 31 members
 3 demotions

**Tetsugate** was a major politican scandal that occurred on the Miniclip Forums in December 2010, following the release of incriminating chat logs between Miniclip Forum administrator Tetsumonchi and StormierZiggy. The logs were annonamously emailed to dozens of members of the community on the morning on 8 December 2010, followed by shortly thereafter by additional chat logs provided by Static Device. Tetsumonchi's resistance to addressing the allegations against him led many in the community to believe he was guilty, and calls for his resignation.

The logs accused Tetsumonchi of multiple offenses, from giving away members private information to mocking people behind their backs to rigging competitions on the forum. In addition, American Girl also accused Tetsu of targeting and bullying her on the forums. Static Device's logs appeared to prove this, and that Tetsumonchi had unbanned StormierZiggy months before in the hope he could drive American Girl away.

## Background

   ]]Tetsumonchi became the administrator on the Miniclip Forums in March 2009. The forum had stagnated since the departure of Club Penguin two years earlier but was able to turn this around through a mix of his own initiatives and the increasing popularity of the Players Channel and Sketch Star. Following significant growth during his first year and positive feedback from the community, Tetsu sought to further improve the forum by allowing some banned members to return, in an attempt to heal old rifts within the community. One of these members was StormierZiggy.

   Tetsumonchi became the administrator on the Miniclip Forums in March 2009. The forum had stagnated since the departure of Club Penguin two years earlier but was able to turn this around through a mix of his own initiatives and the increasing popularity of the Players Channel and Sketch Star. Following significant growth during his first year and positive feedback from the community, Tetsu sought to further improve the forum by allowing some banned members to return, in an attempt to heal old rifts within the community. One of these members was StormierZiggy.
The pair, who lived only a mile apart, met to film an interview about the forum in May 2010. A shared interest in film-making led them to collaborate on creating an online media website, where they hoped to be able to publish joint and individual projects. On the forum, however, Ziggy's outspoken nature and drug references brought him in frequent trouble with the moderators. Devoutly anti-authority, Ziggy argued back or attacked the staff, leading to infractions and bans. Tetsu initially reversed some of these but stopped when the moderators cited preferential treatment towards Ziggy. This loss of support caused significant friction between Ziggy and Tetsu. At the end of June, Tetsumonchi began a two week holiday in Egypt. The moderators, with the backing of the Estonian Administrators, perma-banned Ziggy following another heated argument. A week later, Ziggy tricked MMFgamer into giving him access to his account; leaking private discussions from the staff forum in which mods had spoken critically or

    mockingly of members, causing a backlash against the staff. Tetsumonchi discovered the truth of the break-in but kept it to himself and pardoned MMF, due to the moderator's young age and understanding how manipulative Ziggy could be. To the surprise of the mods, he continued to work with Ziggy, finalizing their website. The website, named The Eye of the Storm, opened on 1st August and generated huge activity, but ultimately collapsed in dramatic fashion following a major falling out between Tetsu and Ziggy, in which Ziggy was demoted after allegedly attempting to demote Tetsu. EOTS had been very popular with members who wanted to get away from the perceived strictness of the Miniclip Forums, and Tetsumonchi upset a lot of people by closing it. Ziggy hung around the Miniclip Forums, using other people's accounts to post, in an attempt to annoy and foster dissent against the staff - principally Tetsu. In mid-August, MMFgamer was sacked after Ziggy sent evidence to the mods proving he'd willingly shared his account. Tetsumonchi remained silent on the issue, concerned that Miniclip would be angry with his decision to ignore MMF's offense. Meanwile, a handful of members, including veterans Vandalpetal and Mr Torpedo, were banned after being caught sharing their accounts with Ziggy. Angered at the treatment of is friends, Ziggy compiled a list of chat logs, which he edited to appear more incriminitating, in the hopes of getting Tetsu "screwed". However, Ziggy ultimately left the forums at the end of August, remorseful that he'd caused so many of his friends to be banned.

Shortly thereafter, Tetsumonchi became embroiled in a "posting race" with American Girl. He had been the top poster on the forum since 2008 but suddenly became aware that American Girl was only several hundred posts behind him. Believing she already had enough awards and accolades, as the top gamer on Miniclip and highest-repped member of the forum, the idea of her also surpassing him as top poster particularly bothered him. He increased his activity to maintain the gap between them, but AG noticed, challenging Tetsu to a race to see who could be the first to reach 30,000 posts. Tetsu declined the race but continued to keep increasing his activity to maintain the gap between them, as American Girl pushed harder to catch up. As the weeks passed and neither user showed any willingness to give up, frustration brewed and arguments betweeen AG and her friends vs Tetsu and mods became common. In October, the pair's newfound dislike of each other grew while the Race to 30,000 Posts intensified, with AG and Tetsu submitting over 1,500 posts each in a single weekend. The community was fed up and asked them to stop. Tetsu agreed to stop and issued American Girl with a warning for spamming, but quickly reversed this when he realized how hypocritical it was. The remainder of October saw Tetsu and American Girl getting into numerous heated arguments, and American Girl issued with two infractions for trolling Tetsu and other users, bringing her total to four. In November, Tetsu noted with dismay that American Girl had returned to posting over 200 posts per-day, and learned from her friends that the race was allegedly back on. She taunted Tetsu by frequently posting the declining number of posts between them.