My Starlings,

So... this is all rather terrible.

I'm sure everyone here is aware of the status and scandals of janitor from the last week. When I signed up for janitor, it was early in it's development. I joined on June 6th, 2023. I've seen every stage this site has been through. I was here when the site used to be a copy and paste design of chub. I was here when the only way to chat with bots was through openai and proxies. I was here when openai then banned and suspended accounts in waves for violating their TOS by using proxies for NSFW content. I was a victim of that original ban wave, actually. I became a community founder and in doing so, became a beta tester for the LLM. I truly believed this project showed so much promise and had so much potential.

A lot of people don't realize I've been here since the beginning, but I don't get any recognition for it because I didn't start posting bots until a year later. By then, some creators had a monopoly. But I carved out my own little circle of this site, and there's about 1200 people in here now. And I couldn't be more thankful for the friends I've made. Some of whom became so close to me they came to my wedding, we go to concerts together, and I actually put one of them back on the train to go home a few days ago after they came to visit me for the week.

Truly, this site connected me to a group of people I could never live without. I could never wish to change that.

Seeing the state of janitor now, I feel... disappointed. The project I once believed in wholeheartedly has turned out to run on a system that I disdain. Favoritism, double standards, unkept promises, and a sheer lack of accountability.

I absolutely cannot stand it when rules are set out, black and white, no grey area, only for those rules to be ignored. I don't care how popular your content is, I don't care how many followers you have, I don't care if you're the first person who ever posted a bot on this website. Rules are established for a reason, and they are meant to be followed and enforced.

The fact that large creators can get away with breaking rules and TOS in the content they publish because they're liked by the devs is inexcusable.

The fact that overworked and unpaid moderators are being undermined by developers for doing their job is inexcusable.

The fact that this community is attacking and threatening some larger creators who are leaving because they're sick of the bullshit is inexcusable.

The fact that we have been promised, time and time again, that there would be better communication, better practices, better features, and 90% of those promises have gone unfulfilled, is inexcusable.

There needs to be change. There needs to be meaningful action to take accountability for wrongdoings and correct them so they stop happening. There needs to stop being so much favoritism within the inner circles of this project. The decisions of moderators who are pouring hours of their lives into their work needs to be respected and their time compensated. Janitorai is supposed to be a community, but instead it feels like a hierarchy and only the 1% at the top matters. I live in America, I deal with enough of that shit every day, I don't want to deal with it online, too.

I don't know if I'm going to end up leaving janitor. I'm going to give it a month or so of watching from the shadows like I always do to actually see change taking place. So far, the things that I'm seeing feel more like a redirection as opposed to real change. Releasing an update for creators right afterwards (the scheduling function) feels more like something to appease the masses. But it's still early. I'm going to keep watching.

You can find me on 🍳 under the same username, where a lot of other creators that I have always respected and admired are moving to. IYKYK. If I do decide to leave, well...

I will be waiting for you at the mouth of the eden.

I have the honor to be your obedient servant,

Starl1ghtChild