Hockey enthusiast
Open Letter
Summary of the past months
For clarity, current plans are that ESA2015 would consist of the following individuals. Edenal, oasiz, flicky, grukk and bangerra. We were all heavily involved in ESA2014 and most of us during ESA2013. We have a detailed plan and shared vision which coincides with the that which a majority of the attendees expressed after ESA2014.
In the past few months, both before and after ESA2014, Edenal has personally received multiple threats from Andreas “Svenne” Svensson, Svenne has attempted to sabotage ESA, including quitting in the middle of planning the game schedule for 2014 and most recently a threat of lawsuit to take ownership of ESA from the community.
During the planning process, the Svenne made promises that were not his to make both through his private Twitter account and the Team Ludendi Twitter account, including reaching out to the runner Sunblade who had his games cut and putting them back in again.
During the scheduling process Svenne threatened to pull himself and his close friends from the marathon due to not seeing eye to eye on if certain games being played by his close friends should be on the Blue or Yellow stream but backed down. Ultimately these games ended up on the Blue stream.
On October 3th, Edenal was made aware that Svenne was preparing to file a lawsuit against him. The reason being that ESA related payments had been made to Edenal’s private PayPal account and these funds had not been transferred to Ludendi’s bank account (which no one had access to). Having these funds available was imperative to be able to organise ESA2014 and the finances and balance spreadsheets of ESA2014 have been made publicly available here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qljINOPWo3harmfByIDG0ZiuUJQ3kR2BP07VjeeRUsA/pubhtml
On October 5th, Svenne hijacked the EuropeanSpeedsterAssembly Twitch account because he did not want us to have the roundtable. We were once again given access to the Twitch account hours before the roundtable was scheduled.
On October 11th, there was a Ludendi meeting being called by Svenne. With the sole intent of defaming the persons involved in ESA2014. Non Swedish speaking persons were shut out as Svenne refused to speak English even though he knew they would be present. The threats of lawsuits were still present at this time.
Andreas “Svenne” Svensson had been excluded from being a part of the planning group for ESA2015, due to unacceptable behaviour during ESA2014. During the final night of the marathon, he became uncontrollably intoxicated, leaving one of the toilets in a disgusting state and completely unusable for the remainder of the event. He did not return to the venue or take responsibility for his actions until confronted after the event was over. After much discussion with attendees and other organisers we had originally planned to ban Svenne from ESA 2015 but after discussion with him, we decided out of compassion to give him one more chance - a decision we have now reverted based on the recent behaviour described above.
Since then, “Svenne” has expressed a desire for there to be a signed contract (draft of contract is viewable here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvIu9Xn7mu5r3Eu-9lQTcJka1jquTdKvz8uzBwlXOJI/) between Ludendi and the main organiser (as voted by Ludendi) of ESA. Although in a draft state, this means signing a contract with the very person who was banned from the event itself and has already expressed that he has no faith in the current organising group that was heavily involved already during ESA2014. Parts that concerned the main organiser ultimately gave this person no true independence as he could be removed from the position at any time and all the finances would have to go through a third party. We are not convinced at the need or benefit of any such agreement or contract to attendees, volunteers or organisers. We do not see how adding more bureaucracy by granting Ludendi full ownership of ESA would benefit the attendees and viewers or help with the organisational process, especially after coming to the conclusion that becoming more independent would benefit all involved (roundtable video available here: http://www.twitch.tv/europeanspeedsterassembly/c/5477429). ESA 2014 was run this year as Edenal took the reins and organised the event when no one else would. It was simply passed over to him and went successfully from there. We have received no explanation of why Svenne believes that he and Ludendi have the rights to control and run the event and how it would be beneficial to those involved beyond personal gain for Svenne himself.
Having that said, there’s an experienced group with a plan that wants to keep organising the event. What we want is to ensure that the speedrun community gets the best marathon possible, that’s why we stepped up to organise and run ESA 2014 and that’s why we want to work our hardest for ESA 2015. Our problem now, based on what happened before, during and after ESA 2014, is that we have a stumbling block in the form of Svenne trying to take control of everything. We don’t believe we can achieve our goal with him involved which is why we opted to remove him in the first place.
The reason we are making this public is so as to achieve our goal of allowing the community a high quality and enjoyable marathon. We believe this decision should be made by the community as this is a community event and not behind closed doors based on no reasoning and limited communication. If the public response is against us as organisers and believes that we would not be the best choice, we will, with heavy hearts, step down from organising the event. If we must step-down from ESA but still have the support of the community, we will strive to run our own event for you, even if it means starting again from square one. Likewise we would be happy to continue working with Ludendi as a group if we can continue as a community event, sharing resources as we would with any speedrunning group.
We are unaware of how much of this was agreed on by Ludendi as a group and as far as we aware, everything has come directly from Svenne himself. Our goal here is not to shame an individual or group or to stop any Ludendi members from coming to ESA (all are welcome), but to ensure that ESA stays with the community and their event. We have chosen to release this information now as we are beginning work on ESA 2015 and need to sort out this obstruction as soon as possible.
- Written by the European Speedster Assembly 2014 planning group.
bangerra, Edenal, flicky, grukk & oasiz
*EDIT* [2014-12-03]
When copying the text from Google Drive, embedded links were lost in translation. Most notably the mentioned balance spreadsheet. They have now been added, both in text and along with the sources.
Quote:
Due to legal threats from the chairman of Ludendi and further demands from the board of Ludendi, I will no longer be involved in organising any events under Ludendi/TeamLudendi until these demands are being dropped.
However, me and the rest of the European Speedster Assembly planning team will continue to work for the community and organise an event independently from the governing of Ludendi.
The demands from the board of Ludendi can be read in this contract:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvIu9Xn7mu5r3Eu-9lQTcJka1jquTdKvz8uzBwlXOJI/
After communicating with the board of Ludendi, these are their beliefs regarding European Speedster Assembly. Comments by the ESA planning group have been added:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eLy9RT6kom8mKjxQNR1ACibvZ6lfOQ3_RmkUMHSTaK0/
I’m not prepared to sign any form of contract which would become a hindrance in organising future events. This document would only achieve the removal of any independance for European Speedster Assembly. Giving all authority to the board of Ludendi while leaving all the responsibility on the appointed chief executive of European Speedster Assembly.
Ludendi is not willing to continue without having the Chief Executive of ESA sign that contract and I’m confident that no sane person would ever sign it.
It’s been a pleasure to be a part of the team that organised ESA2012, ESA2013, Dreamhack Summer 2014, ESA2014 and Dreamhack Winter 2014.
I’m making this decision by my own choice and I will be happy to continue working with Ludendi in the future if these demands and being dropped. Best of luck with future endeavors.
Best regards
Fredrik “Edenal” Lidholt
However, me and the rest of the European Speedster Assembly planning team will continue to work for the community and organise an event independently from the governing of Ludendi.
The demands from the board of Ludendi can be read in this contract:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvIu9Xn7mu5r3Eu-9lQTcJka1jquTdKvz8uzBwlXOJI/
After communicating with the board of Ludendi, these are their beliefs regarding European Speedster Assembly. Comments by the ESA planning group have been added:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eLy9RT6kom8mKjxQNR1ACibvZ6lfOQ3_RmkUMHSTaK0/
I’m not prepared to sign any form of contract which would become a hindrance in organising future events. This document would only achieve the removal of any independance for European Speedster Assembly. Giving all authority to the board of Ludendi while leaving all the responsibility on the appointed chief executive of European Speedster Assembly.
Ludendi is not willing to continue without having the Chief Executive of ESA sign that contract and I’m confident that no sane person would ever sign it.
It’s been a pleasure to be a part of the team that organised ESA2012, ESA2013, Dreamhack Summer 2014, ESA2014 and Dreamhack Winter 2014.
I’m making this decision by my own choice and I will be happy to continue working with Ludendi in the future if these demands and being dropped. Best of luck with future endeavors.
Best regards
Fredrik “Edenal” Lidholt
Summary of the past months
For clarity, current plans are that ESA2015 would consist of the following individuals. Edenal, oasiz, flicky, grukk and bangerra. We were all heavily involved in ESA2014 and most of us during ESA2013. We have a detailed plan and shared vision which coincides with the that which a majority of the attendees expressed after ESA2014.
In the past few months, both before and after ESA2014, Edenal has personally received multiple threats from Andreas “Svenne” Svensson, Svenne has attempted to sabotage ESA, including quitting in the middle of planning the game schedule for 2014 and most recently a threat of lawsuit to take ownership of ESA from the community.
During the planning process, the Svenne made promises that were not his to make both through his private Twitter account and the Team Ludendi Twitter account, including reaching out to the runner Sunblade who had his games cut and putting them back in again.
During the scheduling process Svenne threatened to pull himself and his close friends from the marathon due to not seeing eye to eye on if certain games being played by his close friends should be on the Blue or Yellow stream but backed down. Ultimately these games ended up on the Blue stream.
On October 3th, Edenal was made aware that Svenne was preparing to file a lawsuit against him. The reason being that ESA related payments had been made to Edenal’s private PayPal account and these funds had not been transferred to Ludendi’s bank account (which no one had access to). Having these funds available was imperative to be able to organise ESA2014 and the finances and balance spreadsheets of ESA2014 have been made publicly available here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qljINOPWo3harmfByIDG0ZiuUJQ3kR2BP07VjeeRUsA/pubhtml
On October 5th, Svenne hijacked the EuropeanSpeedsterAssembly Twitch account because he did not want us to have the roundtable. We were once again given access to the Twitch account hours before the roundtable was scheduled.
On October 11th, there was a Ludendi meeting being called by Svenne. With the sole intent of defaming the persons involved in ESA2014. Non Swedish speaking persons were shut out as Svenne refused to speak English even though he knew they would be present. The threats of lawsuits were still present at this time.
Andreas “Svenne” Svensson had been excluded from being a part of the planning group for ESA2015, due to unacceptable behaviour during ESA2014. During the final night of the marathon, he became uncontrollably intoxicated, leaving one of the toilets in a disgusting state and completely unusable for the remainder of the event. He did not return to the venue or take responsibility for his actions until confronted after the event was over. After much discussion with attendees and other organisers we had originally planned to ban Svenne from ESA 2015 but after discussion with him, we decided out of compassion to give him one more chance - a decision we have now reverted based on the recent behaviour described above.
Since then, “Svenne” has expressed a desire for there to be a signed contract (draft of contract is viewable here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvIu9Xn7mu5r3Eu-9lQTcJka1jquTdKvz8uzBwlXOJI/) between Ludendi and the main organiser (as voted by Ludendi) of ESA. Although in a draft state, this means signing a contract with the very person who was banned from the event itself and has already expressed that he has no faith in the current organising group that was heavily involved already during ESA2014. Parts that concerned the main organiser ultimately gave this person no true independence as he could be removed from the position at any time and all the finances would have to go through a third party. We are not convinced at the need or benefit of any such agreement or contract to attendees, volunteers or organisers. We do not see how adding more bureaucracy by granting Ludendi full ownership of ESA would benefit the attendees and viewers or help with the organisational process, especially after coming to the conclusion that becoming more independent would benefit all involved (roundtable video available here: http://www.twitch.tv/europeanspeedsterassembly/c/5477429). ESA 2014 was run this year as Edenal took the reins and organised the event when no one else would. It was simply passed over to him and went successfully from there. We have received no explanation of why Svenne believes that he and Ludendi have the rights to control and run the event and how it would be beneficial to those involved beyond personal gain for Svenne himself.
Having that said, there’s an experienced group with a plan that wants to keep organising the event. What we want is to ensure that the speedrun community gets the best marathon possible, that’s why we stepped up to organise and run ESA 2014 and that’s why we want to work our hardest for ESA 2015. Our problem now, based on what happened before, during and after ESA 2014, is that we have a stumbling block in the form of Svenne trying to take control of everything. We don’t believe we can achieve our goal with him involved which is why we opted to remove him in the first place.
The reason we are making this public is so as to achieve our goal of allowing the community a high quality and enjoyable marathon. We believe this decision should be made by the community as this is a community event and not behind closed doors based on no reasoning and limited communication. If the public response is against us as organisers and believes that we would not be the best choice, we will, with heavy hearts, step down from organising the event. If we must step-down from ESA but still have the support of the community, we will strive to run our own event for you, even if it means starting again from square one. Likewise we would be happy to continue working with Ludendi as a group if we can continue as a community event, sharing resources as we would with any speedrunning group.
We are unaware of how much of this was agreed on by Ludendi as a group and as far as we aware, everything has come directly from Svenne himself. Our goal here is not to shame an individual or group or to stop any Ludendi members from coming to ESA (all are welcome), but to ensure that ESA stays with the community and their event. We have chosen to release this information now as we are beginning work on ESA 2015 and need to sort out this obstruction as soon as possible.
- Written by the European Speedster Assembly 2014 planning group.
bangerra, Edenal, flicky, grukk & oasiz
Quote:
Clarification:
Ludendi is the local video game association based in Skövde, Sweden. Their goal is to promote video gaming and act as an open meeting place.
Source: http://ludendi.wikispaces.com/file/view/Ludendi%20Stadgar/193597470/Ludendi%20Stadgar
Team Ludendi is an online splinter of Ludendi. It mostly exists as a speedrunning team where members are invited by Svenne. How linked it is with the Ludendi group/board, we are unsure.
https://teamludendi.taigaforum.com/post/rules_for_joining_team_ludendi.html
European Speedster Assembly is a community event supported by Ludendi as it is by other speedrun communities including SDA, SRL, SRG, NLG and more.
https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/european_speedster_assembly_2013__main_thread.html
Balance spreadsheet: (Received and approved by Frezy_man, the accountant of Ludendi on September 24th. Last edited October 4th.)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qljINOPWo3harmfByIDG0ZiuUJQ3kR2BP07VjeeRUsA/pubhtml
Sources:
ESA Roundtable: http://www.twitch.tv/europeanspeedsterassembly/c/5477429
[2013-08-15] Screenshot from early ESA2014 planning. Clarifying that leadership was not set in stone. Clarifying that Edenal was not happy with having had to use private accounts. Clarifying that Ludendi was in fact not organising ESA2013.
http://i.imgur.com/n6VsTU4.png
[2014-11-13] Screenshot from Svenne and Magnus receiving the questions about the contract drft.
http://imgur.com/aRrMWK0
[2014-11-09] Contract draft written by Svenne and Magnus of Ludendi.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvIu9Xn7mu5r3Eu-9lQTcJka1jquTdKvz8uzBwlXOJI/edit
(Translation in blue)
https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/european_speedster_assembly_2014__feedback_thread.html
https://teamludendi.taigaforum.com/post/esa_2014__main_planning_thread.html
Ludendi is the local video game association based in Skövde, Sweden. Their goal is to promote video gaming and act as an open meeting place.
Source: http://ludendi.wikispaces.com/file/view/Ludendi%20Stadgar/193597470/Ludendi%20Stadgar
Team Ludendi is an online splinter of Ludendi. It mostly exists as a speedrunning team where members are invited by Svenne. How linked it is with the Ludendi group/board, we are unsure.
https://teamludendi.taigaforum.com/post/rules_for_joining_team_ludendi.html
European Speedster Assembly is a community event supported by Ludendi as it is by other speedrun communities including SDA, SRL, SRG, NLG and more.
https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/european_speedster_assembly_2013__main_thread.html
Balance spreadsheet: (Received and approved by Frezy_man, the accountant of Ludendi on September 24th. Last edited October 4th.)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qljINOPWo3harmfByIDG0ZiuUJQ3kR2BP07VjeeRUsA/pubhtml
Sources:
ESA Roundtable: http://www.twitch.tv/europeanspeedsterassembly/c/5477429
[2013-08-15] Screenshot from early ESA2014 planning. Clarifying that leadership was not set in stone. Clarifying that Edenal was not happy with having had to use private accounts. Clarifying that Ludendi was in fact not organising ESA2013.
http://i.imgur.com/n6VsTU4.png
[2014-11-13] Screenshot from Svenne and Magnus receiving the questions about the contract drft.
http://imgur.com/aRrMWK0
[2014-11-09] Contract draft written by Svenne and Magnus of Ludendi.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DvIu9Xn7mu5r3Eu-9lQTcJka1jquTdKvz8uzBwlXOJI/edit
(Translation in blue)
https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/european_speedster_assembly_2014__feedback_thread.html
https://teamludendi.taigaforum.com/post/esa_2014__main_planning_thread.html
*EDIT* [2014-12-03]
When copying the text from Google Drive, embedded links were lost in translation. Most notably the mentioned balance spreadsheet. They have now been added, both in text and along with the sources.
Thread title:
