Shabago's message

[Jihelu]

"The best place to start, I feel, is for the stewards of the game (staff) to offer a hand to you all, by way of apology. While there are claims and accusations that have been made in rather poor faith with intent to harm the game/individual people that play it, there are other *valid* complaints that did and do exist in regards to the conduct of the team. In these cases, we can not truly fix what took place in the past that led to conflict in various forms, but we can at least acknowledge them and apologise for them. We can also do better, moving forward. After the years I've spent on the staff team, a number of you have commented upon my even handed approach, being a player advocate, and an advocate for greater transparency. I hope, by action rather than just words, I've earned some trust from all of you that I don't make idle promises, but have carried out what I stated were my goals. I intend to continue that, from this new position, and see our community grow in a more positive light."

This whole thing is an interesting read, but you mentioned transparency. Past mistakes, etc.

Can we get some information on those past mistakes? I see tons of players, even on this forum and not the secret naughty one, mention being given the short end of the stick and the response from staff is non existent, 'oh it wasn't really that way', or anything similar to that.

What are some examples of people who've done fucked up and goofed up then? You don't have to name and shame them, staff or player, but what has been done to deal with these? Nergal said people disgusted him then he left (I spoke with him on Discord like last year, he's in a much better spot now and I'm glad he's doing well) but the staff response at the time was...delete the post. What responsibilities did he actually lose? What was done about this behavior? Nothing?

[Iiyola]

I honestly don't think bringing up old oopsies will contribute to a positive environment. It will only give ammunition to some bad apples to point fingers at staff.

[Jihelu]

I honestly don't think bringing up old oopsies will contribute to a positive environment. It will only give ammunition to some bad apples to point fingers at staff.

I was leaning more, at least in my intention, to the 'what has been done' bit of it.

[Maso]

Even thinking about it makes me cringe. In the spirit of moving forward and trying to be positive and respectful and better to each other.. please let's not reopen old wounds? I don't see how that would be helpful.

[triste]

I know you think you are calling to some higher principle of transparency with your request to know past incidents.

However, sometimes confidentiality is important. I, personally, do not care about any dirt brought up concerning me, but others might. The conditions under which you might want to value confidentiality more than transparency is when the community in question is small.

If you've lived a little, you'll know why this is. I'll lay it out for you with an example from real life.

I worked on the Judicial board for a small but prestigious college of 600-1200 students. Confidentiality was important here and Judicial Board members were carefully vetted. Why? Because in a small community, you tend to know people (if you leave your domicile). I found myself having to acknowledge and fight the quiet internal shock as I read cases, those whispers, "He did that?" "I can't believe that happened to her, that's horrible!" "I can't believe she was expelled for that, were we wrong in our verdict?" Some of these people were close friends at the time, and while I am able to see both sides and am still able to view these people in a positive light, for most people, it would permanently alter your opinion of good people, on the basis of partial information, for the worse.

I love transparency as much as anyone. But sometimes confidentiality matters, a lot.

[Delirium]

Even thinking about it makes me cringe. In the spirit of moving forward and trying to be positive and respectful and better to each other.. please let's not reopen old wounds? I don't see how that would be helpful.

+1

What's in the past is in the past. A blanket apology and a promise to do better is enough for me, but if it isn't enough for some players, perhaps a private and respectful discussion via the request tool would help resolve that. Airing dirty laundry for the popcorn eating theater doesn't seem productive if we're trying to move forward as a more positive and welcoming community.

[Malken]

I'll also take the time to apologize to the Staff. I don't mean to sound like I'm shitting all over the staff's hard work for the game all the time, so I'll strive to bring a more positive atmosphere to the GDB.

[Jihelu]

I know you think you are calling to some higher principle of transparency with your request to know past incidents.

However, sometimes confidentiality is important. I, personally, do not care about any dirt brought up concerning me, but others might. The conditions under which you might want to value confidentiality more than transparency is when the community in question is small.

If you've lived a little, you'll know why this is. I'll lay it out for you with an example from real life.

I worked on the Judicial board for a small but prestigious college of 600-1200 students. Confidentiality was important here and Judicial Board members were carefully vetted. Why? Because in a small community, you tend to know people (if you leave your domicile). I found myself having to acknowledge and fight the quiet internal shock as I read cases, those whispers, "He did that?" "I can't believe that happened to her, that's horrible!" "I can't believe she was expelled for that, were we wrong in our verdict?" Some of these people were close friends at the time, and while I am able to see both sides and am still able to view these people in a positive light, for most people, it would permanently alter your opinion of good people, on the basis of partial information, for the worse.

I love transparency as much as anyone. But sometimes confidentiality matters, a lot.

Hence the whole 'don't name people' bit of the whole thing.

'We had a situation in the past, here's an example of what we did to fix it'

No one has lost confidentiality. You see companies and schools do this sometimes as well, they'll vaguely mention an active or past situation and that it was dealt with.

[triste]

I don't think you're going to change the mind of anyone disagreeing with you in this thread. We aren't thirsting for dirt like you are. We respect eachother too much to slobber over eachothers' dirt. I won't reply further assuming we won't see things the same way.

[Inks]

I'd rather not revisit old dramas with anyone on the current team. This message is welcome and I appreciate it, you guys have been doing a great job. Cheers.

[Barsook]

I'd rather not revisit old dramas with anyone on the current team. This message is welcome and I appreciate it, you guys have been doing a great job. Cheers.

[Dar]

I have some grievances with staff. In fact for awhile, I chose not to play as my reaction to ... Things. It passed, now I'm not playing due to lack of time. Which is different.


But while a little vangeful side of me wants to pick it apart and bump staffs nose in their doodoo, I know that from a very short lived momentary satisfaction, it will cause so much more ill then good. I am a big supporter of resolving problems privately and having your main argument 'voting with your feet' in a back pocket, for when you feel genuinely wronged and unresolved.

Putting things out into the public will not work and only raise and multiply the negativity. 

Only when the issue is so systemic and so unacceptable and clearly staff ignored/exasperated it is worth damaging the game to have an open discussion.  If your issue is genuinely that serious, I'd support you. Lets talk about it, but ask yourself first. Is it really?

Because public discussion 'will' damage the game. It will create a self echoing chamber of negativity where the smallest of things will get saturated with real and imagined grievances and color anything nearby, be it good or bad, into the absolutely terrible.

[Malken]

Anyway.

What's the game plan for the next 2-3 months, Shabago? 

[Dar]

Hahaha. Awesome.  Kudos, Malken.

[Evilone]

Well said Shabago. I see this as a good step for the game, and congrats on your new role.

[Lotion]

yeehaw

[Veselka]

CONGRATULATIONS!

Let's do this.

[Jihelu]

Shalooonsh edited his message and made a post discussing his actions, of which I actually agree with I just didn't agree with his threatening demeanor after his edit, so I felt the need to edit this post as well as there isn't any need to focus on something thats been fixed.

This is sort of the thing I wanted to see come out of the message. Everytime I see the whole 'lets forget the old things we can't fix it' mentality all I think of is: We probably can fix it. It just seems that we don't want to.

[Lotion]

If shalooonsh made that threatening edit after the point in time where it was decided bygones should be bygones then it's a bygone and we should expect it to not happen again. If it happened after the point of bygones it's absolutely fair game to address.

[Lotion]

It would be really cool to see past staff mistakes made known and publicly condemned if it could be done in a way that doesn't denounce the people who did those things but the things they did to avoid being witch huntish.

[lostinspace]

Unsolicited advise, feel free to ignore.

I work tangentially with video game support agents (I write tooling software for them), and if someone is being moderated, you don't want your support agents typing up the moderation reason (because they're not PR trained, and you don't want mixed messages from different agents). You want them selecting the reason for the moderation from a pre-generated list.

On our forums, I'm pretty sure our agents replace any removed forum post with the line below:

[This post has been removed because it violates our community guidelines.]

[ShaLeah]

Even thinking about it makes me cringe. In the spirit of moving forward and trying to be positive and respectful and better to each other.. please let's not reopen old wounds? I don't see how that would be helpful.

+1

What's in the past is in the past. A blanket apology and a promise to do better is enough for me, but if it isn't enough for some players, perhaps a private and respectful discussion via the request tool would help resolve that. Airing dirty laundry for the popcorn eating theater doesn't seem productive if we're trying to move forward as a more positive and welcoming community.

I am reminded of that song "For Good" from the Musical, Wicked.

"And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for
But then, I guess we know there's blame to share
And none of it seems to matter anymore"

I, unlike my above fellow players, do *not* think that a blanket apology is enough.

It would be really cool to see past staff mistakes made known and publicly condemned if it could be done in a way that doesn't denounce the people who did those things but the things they did to avoid being witch huntish.

What mistakes are we talking about here? The loading of deadly things to kill someone you don't like? The saving/promotion/favor of someone you do? Is it the personal opinion notes left on accounts? The assumptions of cheating? The blatant ignoring of assumed cheating when it's staff? Are you apologizing for playing all the high karma roles together and locking them up for regular players? Is it the ostracization of the whistleblowers? The banning of code-savvy geniuses from the game? Discord banning? Karma docking? Role denying? Or is it just a general "Sorry we're corrupt politicians/preachers/celebrities" in the Jimmy Swaggart way?

That is going to mean something different for each player. Here's a novel idea. Staff should consider asking that player directly. Opening up a dialogue. THAT is much less Jimmy Swaggart and much more Let's work on it together.

I hope to hear stories of the reparations made to each player.  I hope the players mean enough to the game that those in charge can face the possible sting of an apology that's too late for deeds long done. 

If Staff really wants to change, if trust is going to be built, the player-staff relationship *must* be *repaired*.