We Need to Stop Recommending The Guild (RRWG) as the Go-To Discord
Alright, honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t seen a Reddit post about this already given how most of us are authors and how big the Discord is, but we need to stop recommending RRWG “The Guild” to new authors, or anyone looking to dip their toes on Royal Road or writing online. This post is going to be rather inflammatory, but it’s purely me trying to make my case that we stop recommending The Guild as the “go-to” server.
Writing servers are literally a dime a dozen, I seem to be collecting them like Pokemon lately. Even the author-specific servers I’m in have a spot for “writing chat” or “industry chat.” I could recommend some, but I don’t know if the owners would like me putting their server here considering what I’m about to do.
First, let me set the stage a little bit. This all started when someone in The Guild who went by NovelNinja was outed as being a sham editor. This person and I have already had issues due to his pretentiousness, and I am not the only one. Personally, when I had my run-in, I said some very un-buddha-like things to him and promptly received a light dressing-down. I was told he’s been very active in the trad community for a long time.
It turns out his editing experience is mostly fake, and he used AI to do it (snore another post about AI - but wait, there’s more!). On top of this, he pushed (repeatedly, from the screenshots I’ve seen) a website known as AuthorMedia where it charges you $9 a month (simply to stop bots from joining) to join.
This isn’t really news, this has been on r/progressionfantasy before here. The post has since been deleted by the mods. I’m hoping this one ends up being allowed since I’m doing more talking about a dev editor charging people to use AI. Discord is rather huge to most (a lot?) of authors on Royal Road. Even the ones at the very top have a Discord that they’re in. “The Cabal,” as it’s sometimes referred to, but it’s mostly just authors hanging out like usual, plus there’s a fair bit of LARPing.
People get scammed with editing all the time. I was told I was scammed as well by someone who edited some of my work. (I had a suspicion it wasn’t all above board, but then one day I was outright told). My point is, it sucks but it isn’t news.
The problem with NovelNinja, Mrs. Ninja, and AuthorMedia is that it pushes a very distinct, disgusting and outright evil viewpoint that I don’t believe any of us share. At worst, the website (and the individuals listed) promote outright fascism and nazism, and at best, some alt-right view points that bring a lot of the same energy you see from people screaming about why there isn’t a white pride or straight pride parade. Screenshots
Blog post source
NovelNinja, aka Matthew (this is information he gives out and is linked to anything if you even just search “NovelNinja,” I’m not doxxing anyone) and Mrs. Ninja, aka Lori, even on their personal accounts promote hate, bigotry, and just being disgusting human beings.
He apparently is also quite a fan of the original Sad Puppy himself, Larry Correia. I personally didn’t know what a Sad Puppy was until someone called The Guild’s owner a Sad Puppy apologist in my DMs and they shared this Reddit thread. AuthorMedia itself has done full interviews with Larry.
Mrs. Ninja has a personal blog where she sets out to right all the wrongs in the world with cringeworthy memes in between sections and rants that are, again, disgusting. Here’s an article that I was shown that’s especially heinous.
There is good news! NovelNinja has been banned from the various Discords I’ve seen him in. He pointed this out in one of his posts that I personally found, well… Here. Calling people jihadists, even “Butlerian Jihadists,” thanks to Dune, is a whole new level of yikes. And yes someone with these views should be called out and “cancelled,” in my opinion.
The above screenshot was pulled from a much larger article where he posted names. I’m not sharing the link to the website itself because to my knowledge, these people would rather not be named and they didn’t consent to having the screenshots shared. I’m told there’s been concerns for a while about calling him out because people were worried about him retaliating in a callout post of his own in his personal network.
All the while behind the scenes, the server owner was communicating with NovelNinja. Telling him everything about the process of banning him, who is doing what, what's being pulled from where, and explicitly apologizing to him that this is happening. The previous blog post was posted by NovelNinja the day after his ban on AuthorMedia.
So, what’s the point of all of this?
When this all first came to light, RRWG’s owner hmm’d and haw’d about dealing with the issue. Even after an outcry from their own mod team. Since this has happened, a few people have stepped down as admins or mods, and some have outright left the server. I’m not going to say I know the specifics as to why, but it happened right after all of this came to light.
There was also talk from the owner of outright banning the whistleblower cause he’s a dang troublemaker. From what I’ve seen and heard, that was only the owner and one or two of their friends (and perhaps NovelNinja).
He asked, and offered to leave if the owner would like. The owner declined.
Now, this all happened about a month ago. The stage is set.
Last night, the owner DM’d the whistleblower and asked if he would still leave amicably. The whistleblower said he would leave anywhere he wasn’t wanted, but it would not be amicable. He stuck to his guns and believed anywhere someone like NovelNinja and those of his ilk are, he didn’t want to be.
Before he left, he sent the same message to a few channels, every instance of which was promptly deleted:
“So, I’ve been asked to leave by the owner of the Discord (For those unaware, that’s Dagrun, not Milc). This is due to me outing NovelNinja for faking his editing career, selling AI as a dev editing tool, and being a bigot. I have zero interest in staying somewhere I’m not welcome, so I’ll be heading out.”
From there, the night became uncomfortable. The owner gave one or two warnings, and then outright banned some notable members of the community who all have glowing reputations as people who are more than willing to help newcomers. This list includes: Srsli (Arcane Chef), Fiddlesoup (Lazy Loops: An Idle LitRPG, among others), Sib (Revenant - Power Stealing Hero), and Solomon Abraham (Overpowered Murderhobo, Beastmaster Healer).
A few other sizable authors, including Magius Swiftscale (The Apprentice of Ouroboros, others), were threatened with bans, but ultimately survived the wrath.
Here is Srsli’s last message on the server that earned him a ban.
As readers, you’ve probably all seen these names on RS or even KU / Audible. As authors, you’ve probably seen these people in the relevant Discords (including RRWG) always willing to help and always more than friendly.
Finally, we have this from another admin who fully backs up the owner about everything. That includes allowing NovelNinja to stay, banning the initial whistleblower, and everything else.
Ellembri does have a point. It is the owner’s house and what she says is law. Even if she doesn’t follow her own rules. The point of the server was to have a community, though. A community where the authors of Royal Road could gather, network, and help each other out.
Honestly, the people of RRWG are great. The whole of the Royal Road community is amazing. Everyone I’ve ever interacted with, even “trouble makers,” have always been more than willing to help those just getting on their feet find their foothold. The server as a whole reflects that, but having someone so power-crazy go wild with a banhammer at people simply asking for some clarification of a situation just isn’t it.
Here are the screenshots I'm allowed to share. It’s everything above and so much more. It’s everything I’m allowed to share of everything I’ve seen about the people above and the RRWG drama. There has been a ton that I’ve been asked not to share for obvious reasons, but man… everything is just… it’s a lot.
Amitabha, my friends…
(TL;DR for those that don’t want to read the chapter - NovelNinja is a terrible person, and somewhere between alt-right and possibly an outright nazi. He is apparently friends with Dagrun, the owner of RRWG “The Guild” who violates her own rules about giving warnings and just outright bans notable people in the community for questioning why something happened in a server built on helping and growing the space.)
