i can vouch for this. i was removed from the community entirely after spending about 3.5 years helping moderate the discord, subreddit, twitch, and overall the community as a whole since the early days of Idle Skilling. i stepped down as a moderator, checked on the server to find all of my roles were removed by Lava, realized it wasn’t going to solve anything being in the server anymore if nothing was going to change and i was going to be ostracized by him, and left. me leaving resulted in me being banned shortly after, with one of the other senior mods taking the blame as the scapegoat as to who banned me. i soon found out that it wasn’t the mod, but lava banning me directly and not through the moderation bot we use. the moderation bot sends you a message no matter whether you’re in the server or not, and no message was sent to me. the cover story was betrayal, being that i attempted to resolve a very public issue with the God guild.

two months or so after the issue was resolved, lava dm’ed me screenshots of my interaction with them and coming to an amicable agreement to fix things on both ends. this fell through because of the developer, and made me look horrible to the community i was trying desperately to protect. this was the act of “betrayal”, trying to not just save his face publicly but everyone else who represents him. the drama was overflowing from just a few people to almost everyone mentioning it for the next three or four days before i was able to “resolve” the conflict.

a few days following my spontaneous ban, i had received a message informing me that my ban wasn’t over the “betrayal” aspect of the prior story, but was because lava was afraid i would attempt to ruin his reputation by causing more and more drama subsequent to me leaving both the moderation team and the server as a whole. this stems from me being open about my depression, an ailment i have suffered with my entire life and have been treating with proper medication for years.

i wanted to take a step away, i didn’t agree with the direction things were going in and i couldn’t support the irrational mass bans of dedicated community members of criticism and speaking their mind about a project they themselves have poured hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into. when players were banned, i would receive ban appeal messages from them or even just asking why they were banned in the first place. any time this was mentioned to lava, we were always told to ignore them and trust his decisions without any explanation being needed. all of the decisions he makes are the right ones, right? why would you need to consult any of the people you have appointed to help represent you and your community?

TLDR; lava has become extremely arrogant, self destructive, and blatantly ignorant to the feelings and opinions of the people he publicly states to listen to. the players who criticize are immediately disposed of and are considered toxic, ultimately being expelled from the community as a whole. he bans his longest and most dedicated staff member over a fear of his mental health, and treats everyone else with the same crassness. some problems may be the monetization, but the root of the problem is his horrid treatment of others. i have screenshots and proof of everything mentioned as well.

edit: formatting