Feedback on Changes You Want to See

[GreenTransient]

I hear all of this isn't new.  I hear the kind of behavior that blows up a game and community, isn't new here.  This isn't a first round (but at least we aren't as bad as who was it?  Nyr?).  Sounds like there's been lot's of the "good old boy" club just like in the military.  Circle the wagons, protect our own.  Until Staff start seeing, and treating the players like they are part of the community, and not a resource this seems like another abusive relationship that everyone tells us we should get out of.  The lying, gaslighting, the cyclical abuse.

Until there is player representation, or voice with some kind of authority or power to affect change, I feel like the cycle of be my friend and get ahead will continue.  Be my friend and I'll cover for your nasty ass, will continue.  Until Staff quits making posts of "what can we do" and then just picking the easy code changes instead of fixing any of the real problems.  It's 2023, how are we having to have a conversation about "Hey if I could take you to court you for doing this if I find out your name."  You shouldn't be doing it.  We shouldn't be tolerating it either.  I think that there needs to be some player representation involved in any non-staff punishment. 

The general sense I've gotten is a complete unwillingness to make any significant changes to the setting.  I've read about words having to be removed from play, and seen people throwing a fit about it on here.  Seen people grumbling about not being able to just rape freely.  If something no longer serves the game to it's benefit, perhaps it's time to let them go.  Just because WE change it doesn't make it not OUR game.  It's already different than it once was.  Be open to stepping the game forward as Humanity changes or be satisfied closing it.  "This doesn't fit the theme, or it's allowed because of the theme" seems like a convenient way to just, shelter poor behavior and never move forward.

BL: Staff to me have proven, to not be honest, and to have personal interests held above interests of the Community.  Until there is significant transparency between staff and players, I don't believe this situation is likely to improve.  Harboring predators shouldn't be tolerated either, ESPECIALLY on staff.  PERMA-STAFF BAN.  You want to know if we trust you, put up a pole, but its starting to feel like I'm being asked my opinion to make me feel heard, and calm me.  Not because anyone is actually listening, and that's a horrible way to feel about a way to invest free time.

[Barsook]

I do agree that change never happens and yet I hear "be the change". This is my BIGGEST piece of feedback. Understand that change can be good and it does require effort to change.

[Wday]

1. Staff be nice and support the players, yes this is a harsh world game but we can be nicer on a oocly  No reason for the lets make it hard or kill off ideas or characters in a harsh ooc way.

2. GMH able to recruit and fill the clan with hunters and crafters like in the older days. This I think would help build up plots, characters and make the grind a lot of people want to bypass seem fast with rp and others to play off of more.

3. Open up all the tribes that can be and tone down storms so more active travel can be done. Not to cut out escorts but enough the players CAN venture to each play zones under their own risks. This isn't meaning cut out npc threats so much as making it a bit more game reasonable to travel knowing a bear maybe waiting but you can travel.

4. Staff could and should be able to play. Maybe in their own clans so other teams plans are not so well known?  Maybe not leader roles but in roles there to enjoy their clan and see from ground level what they need to add. Without taking the lead from players.

side remarks. the opening of tribes I know could and would thin areas for a small time. But death and active players always shifts our playzones.  Plus give us more icly reason to reach out to the Momo tribe who sells Momo things and have them shipped icly.

Also lets all tone down the sex stuff icly?  I am all for a private story love life and build of a character and or whatnot.  But it seems this openly causes a lot of drama and leads to very upset players and staff.  So lets as a team just remember some want a love life game and some of us want action, plots and not so much. Balance with your buddies we all play with what they are into and not.

[FantasyWriter]

All of these relate to transparency:

1. IC/OOC Separation: Rule against and punish USE of of ooc information in-game, not the relaying of it.
 - I have a small group of friend (it use to me much larger back in the AIM days) that I discuss my characters with. It's fun, it's an outlet, and I trust the people I choose to interact with in this way not to misuse/abuse this information. Regulating things that can't be policed just leads to people doing stuff like this on the down-low and insults the intelligence of players and staff alike.  This rule is the primary reason why things like the shadowboard and sekrit chat groups exist.  This stuff is going to happen.  Grow up, and treat each other like adults.  If you are not capable of separating IC/OOC knowledge then don't play the game and/or don't communicate with other players/staff about IG details.

2.Transparency: It should never be against the rules to call out a staff member or player who are outright lying and causing grief.  Private messages, the request tool and game logs are -not- personal information and making them public is not doxxing.  Calling them such to defend bad behavior is gross.  If a player or staff member doesn't want things they do or say being brought out publicly, then you shouldn't be doing or saying them. "For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open."(Luke 8:17)  It's going to happen. It can either happen here in a healthy way and we try to rebuild, or it WILL happen elsewhere and fester until in causes the death of what is left of this community.

2b.  We need some form of "whistle-blower" caveat that allowed players and staff to break privacy rules in cases where "following the system" is ineffective.  Again, this goes both ways. Player and staff.  If a player is sending abusive wishes/requests/DMs to a staff member, they should be banned (probably temporarily), and the offending text posted here publicly and visa-versa.  No one should ever be punished for calling out bad behavior. 
Reasoning: From what I have seen, multiple community members brought forth accusations against a community member over a period of years that approached and/or stepped over the line of illegality. When evidence of this abuse was posted outside the realm of staff's control, the posting community member was punished here. That is gross and disgusting to the point that I am considering leaving permanently and having my wife change my passwords to something random.

3. This Rule: "2. Posters should be respectful of one another. Flaming, baiting, trolling or abusing other posters in any way is forbidden. This rule extends to criticism and baiting of staff, as well as responding to such behavior with the same behavior in kind."
I have always understood this rule to men that criticisms of staff shout be respectful.  If I am right, can we reword it to make it more clear?
If others' interpretations are right, and it against the rules to criticize staff at all, then we need to reevaluate the rule.  People who cannot handle/accept respectful criticism do not belong in positions of leadership in any realm of society.

Our extreme lack of transparency in many areas and our leadership structure makes us look very Cultish in every negative aspect of the word.
https://medium.com/@zelphontheshelf/10-signs-youre-probably-in-a-cult-1921eb5a3857

Edited to add (3/3/2023):
Staff Criticism, Moderation, and Banning:
Historically, it has seemed that staff are completely intolerance of criticism and being called out when players feel wronged.   When this happened, their posts are moderated, they loose their posting privileges and/or they get outright banned from the community and game.  This creates shadow communities both "that place" and in DMs and group chats. When other players try to call out or defend players, they are likewise struck down in a way not dissimilar to 1930's/40's USSR media tactics. The more this goes on, the farther apart and more adversarial the player and staff silos have grown.  Staff in Discord the last two days seem to have 180'd this, and I have seem more public back and forth productive conversations in those two days than I have in all the years I have been here.  "This is the way" to begin de-siloing players and staff and build/rebuild a more trusting community.  Hearing staff and players voice something that hurt them in game years ago, then the other party speaking up and telling what was going on from their PoV at the time is a healthy thing.  I hope it continues.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I feel like we need some sort of mediation path that harmed members from both "teams" can air things out so that negative feelings and rumors, true or false, no longer have a reason to fester in the darkness and people are allowed to hear both sides of a story, IC/OOC wall be damned when it is something that harms the community.

[slipshod]

I have a few thoughts to share.  I did not read all of this thread so I might be repeating things.  If so consider them endorsements of the aforementioned.

   1. Better Process for Announcements to Players: as someone who does not heavily engage with the GDB or Discord, this whole event was a bit tough to follow from the sidelines.  It would have been nice for a more visible and accessible announcement  and explanation when the Discord and GDB were shut down instead of leaving people to try to search the answer out themselves.
      - It also felt like it forced every single player to participate in and experience the drama that was happening.  For all the players who just play the game and don't do OOC community engagement, they could have continued playing and reading their clan docs on the board instead of being dragged into the bigger storm.  It kinda seemed to guarantee more acrimony and drove people to the shadowboards for information.
      - Part in parcel with this, staff (and other players) should not assume that everyone is as engaged in the OOC channels as they are.  Far too much seems to happen on the whims of a vocal OOCly participatory minority.  I would rather see things put to the community in a way that gives everyone an opportunity for input, like maybe MOTD announcements in the game itself during login instead of relying on external platforms. edit: this has seemed to get worse in recent  years as sweeping changes get implemented due to (first) GDB conversations and then Discord.  It's as if people who just play the came can't influence it as much as people who split their time between playing and OOC lobbying.  I really dislike this because playing the game should be enough to be part of the community
   
   2. Outline and post the criteria for a PC plots to receive staff support:  It seems like some people get support for their plots and other people in comparable positions do not.  Even if there are good reasons for why some plots get support and others don't, if those reasons or criteria aren't transparent it absolutely looks like favoritism.
   
   3. Make sure staff avatars aren't treating actual PCS as Resource NPCS.  This is something that I've thought about over the last few days, reflecting on some of my experiences with staff -played characters in game.  I really do feel like my PCs (especially my current) have been used as resource NPCs to advance the plots of some of these staff avatars, when it absolutely should be the other way around.  This is the point I feel a little salty about after some reflection.
   
   4. Finally - a clear appeals or complaint process that encourages people to speak up early in a situation rather than feeling like they have to wait until it's become egregious before they can escalate it.  I'll leave others to hash out the logistics of who would handle such complaints, but I do think we could invite dialogues in a way that moves us past the gatekeeping atmosphere many perceive now.  If someone feels uneasy or uncomfortable, we should have a culture in place that motivates them to speak up.  Having some semblance of our own consistent and documented due process should help alleviate the concerns for abuse of this system.

[moonlit]

I'm going to lay this out because I think it's important for staff to think about and try to work out how we can do things better that won't leave people feeling awful later.

I previously quit the game over this, but after 4 months I decided to give it another chance, because a lot of things I liked and between all the messed up things and badness, there's still some genuine goodness in Armageddon as a game that I think is salveageable. Armageddon,  for all it's horrific setting, makes us think. It's a black mirror held up to humanity. But there are some things I didn't know at the time:



I had a staff NPC kill my character, while the staff member was:

- Playing a character who my character was told IC was "talking shit behind your back" by at least one character;

- And was told by several other player characters that this character has been aggressively trying to recruit members of her clan to join her one instead.
(they were reluctant, because my character was more popular and people rarely spoke well of theirs, and instead told my character what they were up to)

- I used the think command expressing distaste for their character.

I did not know that it was a staff member at the time, or I would have certainly made me raise some concerns about the appropriateness to be effectively bullying another character like that, while having all the advantages of staff access to IC information to shape what words to say to manipulate the other characters against my character. As they are still on staff I obviously can't say who without breaking the rules, but I'm not going to argue about that, as there's been so many changes that I hope things are going to get better, with some stronger leadership and oversight of other staff.

Later NPCs wayed a PC saying they witnessed something that would kill my character, and later on I was told in request that it was because they were in the same room. Thankfully I had my own logs which proved this was not true, and provided this in request. I try to be charitable and give people a lot of chances, but considering the extreme IC rivalry, how can I know this was a genuine mistake? The damage was already done at that point, and the staff member's PC benefited in both recruitment and advantages for other PCs that staff member's PC was friendly with.

It was only one mistake out of a few other irregularities as well:

When about to do this, the NPC said several lies while supporting their claim IC, so I made a wish to staff in case these were OOC mistakes, because:
- My character was accused of things that the NPCs would have witnessed to know are not true,
- And also said things that directly conflicted with facts stated in the clan docs.

I was told to take it up in request - before they then dealt the irreversible death blow in the game. It seemed a very spur of the moment thing and like there had not been much oversight between other staff before this happened, as I had put in a request explaining the situation and asking for an IC meeting (there were several player characters who needed help IC, so I was making an effort to not just randomly disappear), but it seemed like they hadn't noticed I had made the request until after killing my character.

After making so many mistakes - I'm trying to be open minded and not assume it was intentional - with not checking basic IC facts first before making serious accusations, and docs they should be familiar with and have easy access to?

Please put yourself in my situation there and imagine how anyone can know that the lies this NPC said, these OOC mistakes, were not influenced by the staff member player character's jealousy and rivalry with my character?

I know nobody's perfect, but this isn't a nice feeling, it feels like it taints the RP when there's OOC aspects like that around it.


Now it's important to say things IC should be kept IC, but I've watched before two other player characters have massive arguments IC with each other, and then use the quit command on several different occasions in a way that it's obviously OOC anger as well, I know (other) people get like this, and I don't blame, people definitely do let the OOC influence sometimes, and that's human nature I guess, to try balance that to make characters believable is all just method acting, and not everyone has the same mind and reacts to things the same way (people have choices, you can't put all the blame on people for everything) and that's fine.

It shouldn't be a competition OOC as well as IC, but I feel like some people definitely take it as one, and there's an obvious element of it being unavoidably a PK skill game of sorts when it comes to how clans compete for people. But I've staffed on other games and I don't see any fun in playing with "cheat mode" on, why not throw that bone to the players to fight over instead?



At the same time: I don't know much of the situations people have been talking about but I've seen staff characters used in good ways to keep plots moving between other characters, getting people involved, and giving stuff for people to do, and we shouldn't lose that. Yes, even romantic relationships, if there's consent, IC is IC.

So I don't think it's good to say no to staff playing characters, but maybe logs need to be more accessible and easy to view by staff, so there can be a sanity check before damage is done to the game and someone who isn't distracted by other tasks (and won't be afraid to mention it) can notice a situation developing and say, "Hold on, what, no, you realise how that's going to make the players feel, right?" I feel like if I was there, with my experience of these kind of situations, I would have talked to people and stopped a lot of this happening in a nice way that gets everyone refocused on instead animating the amazing virtual world (but I understand I haven't seen as many aspects of the game as the older players yet)





Other issues• It's a bad idea to remove the rules about IC and OOC separation, there are many avenues of RP that do not have surprises and intrigue already, and it's one of the last interesting and unique things that Armageddon has to stand out, it makes a different, interesting experience, when people don't ruin it for everyone else anyway.

I think the laxness that makes people think it's acceptable to act this way is part of the problem, the rules need to be more strongly and equally, fairly, enforced. People need to know that if they cheat they will lose out on everything, no matter who they are friends with. Positions of trust and power over other players have been held by some players that have admitted openly to talking with their friends about IC situations. That's not fair to the people that don't engage in this. We need to see stronger enforcement and punishment of people who think the rules are thee but not for thou, this goes for players too.

And I think doing our best to separate from Discord with a new chat system on the website that doesn't allow DMs would be an amazing step forward to protecting people. When people say they want to see who is playing who, it's a nice idea on the surface but a terrible idea in practice, people absolutely will try to put pressure on people and manipulate OOC. We need to remove entirely that nasty aspect of Armageddon, not encourage it.

• At the same time as removing the toxic ability for players to slip into other player's DMs, make it so that requests are not a free-for-all and add an ability to report something more privately to an individual staff member, maybe a few people that are willing to take these kind of messages. This is not just a staff thing, in many cases people might be afraid of making a complaint against a well-connected player (or one that has used the ease of access to people on discord to manipulate people into getting personal information) who is breaking the rules repeatedly.

• I disagree strongly that bans should be posted publicly, some games do this and it just seems abusive really - it opens people up to harassment, it's like some nasty medieval treatment of people.

• Logs need to be easier for staff to browse on the website and not deleted, if chat can be caught up on as easy as requests, it would probably change things completely in a good way.

[Olverdirn]

My own experience over the years has been overall positive with staff.  The only issues I've had (which are all cleared up now by the way) have been times where I was uncertain about whether communication through requests from staff was IC or OOC.  A hypothetical might help explain what I mean.

Let's say I'm playing the tribed city-elf Amos and I inform staff that Amos was sharing information with Aide Fancypants.  In the request response, staff might say, "Be careful how much information you're sharing with Aide Fancypants."  When I read that, I wonder if that comment is (A) staff telling me that I'm playing Amos incorrectly, or (B) staff making sure that I understand that what Amos is doing could get them in trouble.

I would rather hear back:
   OOC Feedback: "City-elves would normally not share that much information with someone outside his tribe.  Please make sure you have good IC reasons for Amos to be doing that."
   or IC Feedback: "Got it.  Just so you're aware, if Amos keeps doing this, there could be trouble for him from the tribe."

After writing this, I think the confusion comes if staff writes in a way that sounds like I (the player) am the one doing things that my PC is doing in the game.  For clarity in communication, please distinguish between the player and the character in the request responses.  I don't like feeling like I'm in trouble for making my PC do things I already know they should not have done.  However, if I'm having the PC do things that they would not have done (e.g. elf riding a mount), then I want to know so I can do better.

[valeria]

I’ve thought a lot about whether to post a response in this thread, or whether I’m even invited to post a response. I don’t see myself wanting to return in the near future, but I also didn’t leave the game out of bitterness and can imagine a world in which it would be an enjoyable place for me to play again. So I hope that my suggestions will be taken in that spirit.

There are two things that would need to happen in order for me to feel comfortable playing Armageddon again, and neither of them would be easy.


1. Radical transparency

The veil behind which staff hold themselves has been demonstrated to be a process that fosters resentment in both directions and shelters abuse. That isn’t healthy to a game or community. We’re all players and members of this community.
The sort of authoritarian pyramid establishment that presently exists generally leads to the people in the castle circling up in the castle and looking down. We are the managers, you are just the employees, you don’t know what’s good for the corporation. We are the cops, you’re just the citizens, you don’t know what’s good for you. We’re the parents, you’re the children, you don’t know what’s good for you. The thing about this model is that nobody feels good – not the cops, not the citizens, not the parents, nobody.

This is not a good model for a community of collaborative storytelling. This is the way things were done in the 1990s, but it just doesn’t fit with modern systems.

I’m going to use Halaster’s post to discuss radical transparency, not because I want to pick on Halaster or think he’s some sort of bad actor, but to demonstrate what I mean by radical transparency.

[Things that happen outside the domain of our game are beyond our control.  The only portions that we, as a community and more specifically a staff body can do, is hold to account things that happen here and are covered under our rules and regulations.]

You cannot remove the game from its social context. It’s one thing to not want to try to mediate a divorce through the game, but it’s another to ignore social context, which is what in this instance has led to the harassment of another player. If the social context is unknown, if what transpired is unknown, no person is going to be able to judge whether the result was fair or unfair. People are always going to disagree about ‘fair’ and ‘unfair,’ but the information for them to make those decisions should be on the table.

[That said, various regulations were broken. Various rules were broken.]

What are the regulations? What are the rules? Which were broken? How? By whom?

[And, of course, trust was broken.]

This makes sense. Trust tends to die in societies with a lot of secrecy.

[We have taken action in these portions that we have oversight upon. This includes our own staffing body and we will continue to do so.]

What actions? By who? Against who? Why?

[Does this soothe or fix anything that has transpired?  Likely not. Nor should it. Anger over these types of topics and lived experience deserves anger.]

This recognition is good. I’ll address anger and discomfort later.

[It deserves accountability and it deserves closure.]

It does. I’m still in the dark about how accountability is even measured, and I don’t have an account of what has been done. I'd love to see accountability and closure.

[We have kept to a set of policies that were put into place long before a lot of us arrived on staff.]

What policies?

[Some of us agree that some of those policies need to be changed, while others feel that the policies are currently fine the way they are.]

What are the policies? What procedures arrived at the policies? Who decided them? What do they mean in practical terms? How are they enforced?

What policies need to be changed? What are the arguments for and against changing certain policies?

[We're a collective group of players from our community that do not always agree on everything - just as we don't expect all of you to agree with each other.]

I 100% agree that Arm is a collective group and a community. That doesn’t mean we will all agree.

This leads into my second thing.


2. Removal of overmoderation and tone policing

The very unclear and amorphous nature of the moderation rules do not promote an environment of consistency, transparency, honesty, openness, or discussion. Particularly “be respectful” and “no trolling” and “stay on topic,” which are often used as excuses to close and lock threads, alter posts, or move entire discussions into the moderation void.

Again, what do these rules even mean? Does it mean ‘no insults’ or does it mean ‘don’t disagree with me’? Fuzzy and subjective terms like “good faith” are also often used as weapons against people that just don’t agree with you or who use a tone you don’t like.

People who are angry are going to speak in an angry tone. People who are passionate about something are going to passionately disagree. People who get upset by an internet argument can walk away from their keyboards and touch some grass, as the kids say.

And who on the internet stays on topic anymore?

These rules should be scrapped and replaced with clearly delineated and less restrictive rules. ‘Do not use slurs based on race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, country of origin, etc.’ ‘Do not post the personally identifying information of other players, including name, location, phone number, or email address.’ You get the drift.

All of this would require a lot of people giving up their power and placing their cards on the table. Because people in power generally prefer to keep it and guard it jealously, it would require a real commitment to reform. I don't think real change is likely, but I'm always an optimist and would be happy to be wrong!

I hope that everyone who is dealing with this very difficult and stressful topic drinks some water and has a snack. Almost every one of you has my best wishes.

[Nao]

Okay, here's my two cents/ideas.

1. We need a solution that lets you file staff complaints without the staffer that the complaint is about immediately seeing it in the request tool
I don't care how this is implemented. One way would be to hide all staff complaints from anyone that's not a producer (they need to be the ones responding to them already, if I remember right). Offer an e-mail address where players can send their complaint a single producer of their choice if your complaint is against a producer.

Or maybe the web developer can come up with something better.

I'm aware that someone will have to the staffer eventually most of the time. I'd still like to see this. It provides some measure of anonymity (it's sometimes obvious from context who has submitted a complaint, but it's not always the case). The producers that will bring this up with the staffer that is accused of wrongdoing will have a more neutral view and are less likely to provoke some knee-jerk defensive reaction. The producers will also be able to check the logs and do some investigation before bringing it up with the staffer. The occasional complaint might be cleared up and settled just by reviewing some logs, without even bringing it up to the staffer.

2. Some protection against retaliation needs to be in place.
This came up on discord not so long ago (see here: https://discord.com/channels/304236792750538752/306960793604194306/1043887292936359937 ).
When trying to respond to that player, I couldn't even find a staff rule that explicitly forbids IC retaliation against complaints. There should be a rule.
Preventing staffers from seeing the complaint is another step. More protections could be in the form of mandatory contact restrictions (ICly or OOCly) after a complaint for a certain period (can be waived if both parties agree). Alternatively, this could be done at the player's request only.

3. Something unrelated that came up on discord
"Someone gave me a bad account note and I didn't even know for a long time" seems to be a reoccurring problem. Why are we even keeping these secret?
Make account notes available on the website at any time. They probably shouldn't be written in a way that requires staff to sanitize them.
Especially for bad account notes, having them immediately available lets players contest them immediately, while the memory and the logs are still fresh and staff will still remember what that player is talking about. If a player agrees that they might have done something bad, it's also better for them to know immediately so they can correct that behavior - not next year or whenever they happen to request account notes.
Positive account notes are like kudos and it would be motivating to get them more often. There's just not a lot of downsides to this.

[Katima]

For transparency, a few posts have been moved from this topic to moderation, because they were posted by players who have stated they were never returning in some verifiable format, and the guidelines for submitting feedback are very clearly laid out in the OP.

[Is Friday]

For transparency, a few posts have been moved from this topic to moderation, because they were posted by players who have stated they were never returning in some verifiable format, and the guidelines for submitting feedback are very clearly laid out in the OP.

This reads as: "We don't want to hear from people we hurt or abused because that would hold us accountable."

I'll edit this post with further feedback later in the week.

[Qzzrbl]

For transparency, a few posts have been moved from this topic to moderation, because they were posted by players who have stated they were never returning in some verifiable format, and the guidelines for submitting feedback are very clearly laid out in the OP.

This reads as: "We don't want to hear from people we hurt or abused because that would hold us accountable."

I'll edit this post with further feedback later in the week.

Seriously.

I will likewise edit this post with further feedback later in the week, and I am planning to return depending on how things go regardless of whatever other "verifiable format" might say.

[Halaster]

I have restored the moderated posts and given staff clearer instructions.  I will record them here:

The thread rule states:

d)  We are interested in the opinions of players who want to see the game succeed, and who are willing to help us make it a better community for everyone.  If you have no intention of playing this game again, we do not want to hear from you. We want the feedback from active, or soon-to-be-active-again players, or players deciding if they want to come back.

Unless someone literally starts their post with "I have no intention of ever playing again" or something like that, let it stay.  We have no way of knowing the future or a player's true intentions, give them the benefit of the doubt.  If they're not playing today, but haven't explicitly told us they're not playing again, let it stay.  Assuming all the other rules of the forums are followed (no flaming, personal attacks, all that).

[DustMight]

As an old-timer I have seen a lot of change over the years in how staff/player relationships are managed and in how the vision of the game has changed. Some changes have been amazing, some not so good. I don't have any idea if my comments today are worth much, but I thought I would share them, 'cause what the heck, someone handed me 1 post GDB soapbox and I'm a weak man.

1. I love the idea of staff never playing leadership characters or characters of any importance. In fact, having a enforced shortened life-span for immortal characters appeals to me for all the reasons others have expressed that staff PCs can be problematic.

That said, I have played with amazing staff run PCs that have killed my characters and hands-down do not regret anything about that. It was some of the best RP I have experienced in the game. In fact, I find myself wondering whenever I play with a really well-developed character (personality-wise) if it is actually a staffer. It's a bit of paranoia I suffer.

Yes, staff should be playing NPCs, leading plots, driving themes but these should be NPCs that are run for specific purposes. While I love to play Pen and Paper RPGs, when I run the game I do not play one of my PCs as well.

2. The OOC/IC separation never really worked well. Back in the day there was a bit of a iron-curtain but lets face it, people knew "stuff." Now it is even more porous. We would probably do well to just let that fantasy go. It blows my mind that how a class branches is actually available in the documentation. Crazy talk! I'm sure plenty of people are sharing information about poisons, spells, herbs, or whatever. I know that some have developed spreadsheets for crafting that they then share with others. I mean we can't keep state secrets secret. Do we think folks are not sharing in-game sensitive information? I think we should do away with that and trust that players will manage themselves. And the reward for proving themselves? Karma.

3. Without a doubt _all_ staff communication that isn't on the GDB for all to see should happen via the request tool. There isn't a reason that staff would need to DM me or email me or whatever.

All in all the game is great, the staff in all the years I've been playing has been pretty on point with only a few misses.  I've been on both ends, having a character resurrected a billion times back in the day because their friend player had an admin friend and I've annoyed the sh*t out of staffers and have been the recipient of the same. There are twink players and there are great folks really deep into the role-play.  There are bad staff and there are amazing staff and here the game is like 30 years later.

I have humble gratitude for you all, staff and players. The fact that this is even a discussion speaks volumes about this game and those of you so invested in it.   

[CoconutDoggy]

Note: I am a returning player and I have not read all of the suggestions in the thread, so I may unintentionally repeat things already said.

So here are my thoughts and general suggestions:

I feel like the problem we are facing are a culmination of issues that have been at a slow boil for quite some time. And I think the two biggest issues are the reluctancy of some staffers to claim responsibility to their mistakes or criticism that they are presented with, no matter how valid or good-faith they may be, and the lack of transparency coupled with the individual agendas which may not and do not align with the player-base that some staff members have. Granted, I am very pleasantly surprised by the ownership of the mistakes made here by staff, but I am still very disappointed it took this long to get here, and that it took something of this magnitude.
 Sexual abuse, - and any kind of abuse really - is completely disgusting, indefensible, and erroneous. No buts. No ands. And I am not going to equate sexual harassment/abuse to general instances of abuses of power and ego trips associated that staff have failed to properly address. But here I want to draw an interesting relationship between the current allegations of sexual abuse and these past issues which have in some capacity been unresolved.

These allegations, particularly against the specific former staffer its about, are not particularly new. As these allegations have surfaced before only to be put down by staff as "shadow board trolls", swept under the rug and dismissed. Sexual abuse allegations aside, this is somewhat of a general trend from staff to dismiss and write off criticisms aimed at them, no matter how good faith and appropriate they may be, whilst failing to take ownership for their own mistakes.

"You can just quit if you don't like the game or don't agree with us."

Now, I am not saying all staffers are like this. There are some staff members which do take accountability and do genuinely put the interests of the players above their own. And I will always praise them to the high heavens for it, and they deserve so much more appreciation than they get. But, the staffers who do contribute to the problem(s) I described make things hard for everyone.

"What do we do to fix this?" Well, I am not sure.  But, I will leave my suggestions as I do still have a genuine passion for the game and its player-base.

My suggestions:

A) Make it a policy to not allow staff members to play clan leaders, sorcerers or mindworms. The ability for abuse of this role has happened before and the possibility is far too immense.

B) Create some sort of "freedom of criticism, unity of action" type system for both players and staff to allow a free (yet obviously good faith) criticism between players and staff in order to promote healthy and open dialogue in the community. And when an action is decided by the majority of players and staff, every staff member should adhere to the agreed upon decision.

C) Have some sort of a "punishment log" which scrubs all of the individual info of the staff members involved. I think this is good because it shows the pbase that staff are enforcing and upholding their own policies.

D) Make staff policies public so players know what is reportable and against protocol

E) Allow players to request that a certain staffer not be able to interact with them outside of the very basics.

F) Give general amnesty and allow people to return to the game (with a few obvious exceptions) as a performance of goodwill and to wipe the slate clean and allow grudges and old wounds to heal properly.

G) Ban staff avatars from being able to participate in sexual RP.

H) Allow protection to players reporting staff members.

I) Emphasize on player run plots with staff assistance, not vice versa.

J) Make clearer, more concise rules for the discord since I feel as if they are a bit broad and unspecific. (or just get rid of the discord all together)


Closing thoughts:

With my issues regarding staff in general aside. I want to address some community wide issues. Honestly, the biggest issue I think we as players have in the community is that there are a lot of grudges which are years old if not over a decade old which need to be let go. I understand particularly for older players that this might be a bit of a challenge, but, first and foremost ArmageddonMUD is a game. And we should first and foremost treat it like such. Something that we do for fun, to relax, and create experiences impossible to replicate outside of a game. And a lot of the grudges people hold get in the way of that. Some of these are valid and some are not. But I ask that for the sake of ourselves and each other to let go. Whats in the past is in the past. And we are here in the now. And now, we need to get our issues together so we can have fun again, and it is definitely possible to have fun again. Furthermore, Armageddon is a game that many of us spend hours of our days, days of our weeks, and weeks of our years contributing to. And it can be heavy on the mind, so I implore everyone to remember that if you are not having fun and are not enjoying yourself to just take a step back. Its okay. Theres nothing wrong with that.
But above all:
Let go.
Forgive each other.
Be kind to one another.
And enjoy what we are here for: A nerdy DnD esque desert game about elves and templars.

I hope to anyone who is reading this, regardless of their position has a great day!

[Synthesis]

I haven't played for around 4 years.  I didn't stop playing because I was mad about anything...I just found some different hobbies/time-wasters for a while.  So...whatever happened in the last 4 years, I have zero personal experience with.

To me, it all sounds like a very basic, universal problem:  What do you do when a bad actor gets into a position of power?  Unfortunately, despite being a very basic problem, the solution is not basic--and in fact likely has never been found.  That's why it's a universal problem.  Some people at a very basic level simply are not reasonable.  Frequently this unreasonableness demands that they have power to inflict their unreasonableness on others, and this prompts them to seek positions of authority where they can satisfy that basic urge.  And also frequently, they know what they are doing is wrong, and they become quite good at concealing who they really are and what they are really doing.

My assumptions are that: a) a bad actor (more?) got into a Staff role; b) covered their tracks well; c) ordinary  Staff members failed to detect it for whatever reason.

The fundamental problem with all of this is that investigations are difficult. Often, both victims and suspects will lie about things. Sometimes suspects are better at seeming sincere, and sometimes victims are bad at explaining their case. If anyone thinks they have some glib solution to this problem that will neatly fit into the context of a GDB post, you are sadly mistaken.  There are entire libraries full of texts on detecting deception, conducting investigations, managing human resources, organizational oversight, etc. etc.

You can break it down into component problems, but the solutions to the component problems are just as difficult.

1) How do you make sure that a bad actor doesn't get into a position of power?

2) You know a bad actor is eventually going to get inside your organization.  How do you make sure that you can detect them?

3) You know that you aren't going to detect a bad actor before they do something bad.  How do you limit the extent of that harm?

4) You know that people are going to be harmed by the bad actor's damage.  How do you make amends or offer restitution for that damage?

I'm not going to offer any solution about this, because I don't know the facts about how whatever happened actually happened.  The above is a framework to think about it, and there are particular facts and circumstances that flesh out what the specific problem was and what the specific solution should be.  A lot of the stuff already proposed by other people probably fits into those categories.

Also, a lot of people are throwing their pet peeves/projects into the salsa here.  I don't think this is the place for that.  This thread was a request to propose solutions for how to not have creepy weirdos doing their creepy weirdo stuff at the expense of folks just trying to play a fun game.

[pilgrim]

I will post the same three short simple things I suggested in the discord before getting banned.

1. Make some professional guidelines for staff: a) no sponsored roles and b) no ERP with players
2. Unban [edited] anyone else who was banned for whistleblowing.
3. Ban [edited] sex pests.

Please respect the rules of this thread. All edits as of 6:39pm server time in this post by Hestia

c)  Do not single out individuals.  Whether pro or against.

[Jimpka_Moss]

After a reread, this touched rule C too closely, so, First note, we need someone for player advocacy that isn't burdened with the title of staff or the same responsibilities. Why? If the DM screen is going to remain, and staff's names are different than their legal or Screen Name, there needs to be someone in visibility who can peek behind the screen and give the thumbs up and say 'Yeah, everything's on the up and up, it's just perspective'.


Second note, for now, I implore you all to go the extra step of using qualifying language when talking about our communities individuals and groups. 'A staff member once...' and 'Staff once....' will make the larger group as a whole less defensive, (just an example). I make the mistake often of saying people in game, when I mean player characters, PCs, and sometimes I don't make clear divisions between players and their chars, such as.... 'Other players will chop wood or kill my PC' and with the barriers we have in place for suspense, very few of these statements are factually accurate and justified. 'A character in game killed my PC' is much better. Language that is unclear, of which I am very guilty and have learned from, can add many complications and hurt feelings (And thus, poorer reactions).


I may add more.

[Bast]

This is really long and likely riddled with typos as I am writing from my phone. However I have a pretty extensive gaming background. I run a lot of long table tops but one of the first games I really got into was Vampire the masquerade at peak larp era when the Camarilla was still a thing. (If you know you know). One of the issues with the cam was fairly managing that many players with multiple ST’s and coordinators ect. There was concern about bias, some ST’s did occasionally play favorites to let significant others get a leg up when other people couldn’t ect. Staff ran NPC’s and also had their own PC’s. Sure it was a little more obvious when your ST was playing an NPC as this was a larp with 60ish people hanging out in a park at night without the computer screens to hide us but my local chapter had some good rules in place and it really helped a lot. Vampire the Masquerade is set on a similar premise as Arm it’s meant, as a larp, to be a game big enough for political intrigue, backstabbing, murder and betrayal. The Cam at one point had chapters all over the USA and you could literally go to any big city in SC or GA and walk in with your character and play. Honestly I think like Arm because it is so much like VtM.

Ultimately, let's be honest, everyone is a flawed human. Mistakes happen, they just do. In combat it’s hard running a game with dozens of players. My table top has eight atm and I feel overwhelmed and missed stuff sometimes too. I feel more inspired to write for the players that contribute the most and complain the least. I don’t want to make plots for the pc that’s likely going to complain even if I give them 80% of what they want because they didn’t get the other 10. Thats not favoritism, it's human nature.

Players here can be super toxic too. My worst experiences in this game with sexual harassment or bad actors has been with other PCs not staff. I had a player turn into a irl stalker before. I have had my pc killed because someone didn’t like me OOCly for something one of my previous characters did. I have had another player doctor DM’s in a chat to try to get me banned before. Abuse is not limited to staff.
 I have never been interested in being a staff member at Arm. As stated I run a lot of games Armageddon is the only game where I consistently get to play. I also don’t go to the shadow forum. I refuse to do. Why? Every time I talk to a player that’s all worked up over something they read over there their reasons are always seriously just wrong. One player's perspective is not accurate to the bigger picture. So I, as of right now, still have no clue what all was posted. I came here to play and have fun. That is the only reason any of us should be here.

I try to avoid talking to the vast majority of the player base as it is seriously destructive to the game. I also actively try to be a good player that contributes to the fun of everyone around me. That puts me in a lot of leadership positions. I have often over 20 years felted wronged in a moment only to learn 5, 6, 7 years later I never should felt that way because there was valid stuff with other people going on that I just wasn't privy too and it rippled into my pc's life for one reason or another.

1) Staff absolutely should be allowed to play the game. Staff absolutely should not be allowed to have a PC in higher ranks of any Clan. Sorry even if you are super careful and never blur the lines your players are never going to see it that way if they learn you are Staff.

2) Clear lines between what a PC is and what a NPC is.
This is a common pitfall in any rpg. You as a ST/GM/whatever can get very attached to NPC’s it makes them hard to let go of and you can get in murky water wanting them to endure. It can make you feel like you're playing against your PC’s and that is NOT your job. Your job is ultimately to bring the world beyond the PCs to life in a realistic manner, facilitate stories and provide challenges that PCs may or may not be able to overcome. Even the best intending ST can get ic/ooc information crossed. You're more likely to have your pc jump to conclusions if you already know what the answer to the problem is. No one is immune to this.

At the same time players don’t need to know Noble X is an NPC and sometimes Staff NEEDs someone to fill a void. The alternative is likely shuttering clans to condense the player base. No one wants that. That means sometimes staff need to have consistent NPCs  that don't get treated any differently from the player base.

I think staff side there should be NPC oversight. An NPC should have a formatted write up. I’ll post an example below. Their goals, drives, purpose ect should be clearly outlined. Strength and weaknesses as well. They need to have running history so anyone on staff can look and see what they have been up to. This doesn’t have to be super detailed. It just lets everyone know what this NPC has been up to. Why they are there and a general idea of what they are going to do in any given situation. There should be a conversation staff side about realistic reactions by that NPC if they are going to take action against a PC and PCs should be utilized where possible. So if noble X the npc ends up in direct conflict with a PC the staff animating that npc needs to go through either approval from other staff or have a lengthy conversation with the rest of staff before hiring PC assassins or ordering minions to do something against them. It doesn’t have to be complicated just a moment to have someone else check to make sure the “punishment is fair for the crime” . Role playing causes real emotions to come up sometimes. Having to step back, take a breath and talk through your reasoning is important. It slows down the chances of knee jerk reaction and that is hard to avoid sometimes. Now that said if you attack a Red Robe or kill a noble in the arboretum staff should not have to have a meeting to decide to animate a realistic response.
 
Example Template:
NPC Lord Fark of House Fancypants the IV
Alligentment: Neutral Evil there is nothing Lord Fancypants loves then to use the laws of the city to beat someone else over the head
Background: Write a short blip about the NPCs past and what motivates them.
Personality traits: Lord Fark is a lawyer at heart. While he is not well connected to anyone really in power he is a hanger on to the Senate. He attends any open sessions allowed and spends much of his time in the company of any of the lesser nobility serving as aides to the various members of the senate. He adores gossip and speculates about upcoming changes and recent senate announcements. He likes being more important than the people around him and will befriend freshly debuted nobles fairly easily. However he gets very jealous if they start becoming more successful then he is. Specifically if he thinks they benefited from his friendship to get where they are and they don't shower enough praise on him. 

Goals: Lord Fark wants to eventually usurp his mother as Senator.Plot hooks: (list active plots Lord Fark would be involved in or involved in starting)- Lord  Fark is not a mover and shaker but he does know who is. He could be bribed to share bits of court gossip or pointing a Noble, Templar or Merchant he favors in the right direction to get their own objectives accomplished. Purpose: He is here to provide light rivalry to notable experienced Nobles of other houses and also help new noble players learn to game the system and on up other nobles. I.E. is intended as a buffer to help new PC nobles get established while distracting more established Highborn by giving them some mild rivalry. He can also be used to deliver plot hooks involving highborn politics to the nobles and templars.

Recent interactions

5/26 Got into a drunken argument with Lord Lickspittle after hearing him brag about his many public successes. Fark was totally embarrassed publicly as a result of the argument. He will be looking for ways to toss broken glass in Lickspittles path if he can find another pc upset with them.

6/2 took a 20k bribe from (pc) Lady Fluffybottom to pass a rumor  around the jr senators circles that House Lickspittle is secretly planning to cancel the arranged marriage between their our and House Sparklyshoes in favor of a match with House Brandywine. -Lady Fluffybottom is mad at Lord Lickspittle for insulting her hat and she wants to make him suffer.

3) Plots and transparency
Plots should have a clear outline on the staff forums. There should be a listed cast of NPCs and a summary of the plot. Motivation for the plot and while players should have a real chance to influence this there should be a list of possible outcomes, how that could change the game ect.
There should be a timeline outlined for the proposed run length of the plot with dates or windows set for certain plot markers. Under the thread about a plot there should be notes on what PCs are engaging the plot and what actions they are taking. Again this doesn’t have to be super detailed.

Publish finished story arcs- At the 1 year mark after a plots conclusion it should be published. Any still  living PCs involved should be redacted so they don’t have their continuing stories screwed up. But man there are so many things that happen that only staff sees. Only staff gets to see the full story and we are such assholes about never sharing the plot lines when they are done the vast majority of the players have no chance to ever “find out in game”. It’s helpful and healing to know that my pc that I thought got murdered to be a notch on a bed post was actually killed because of their lovers enemies or that it was part of some bigger thing I was never aware of. It also takes away the shroud of “did staff secretly have it out for me” or why wasn’t player X that killed me never punished or exacted. Lastly, it's good for the game! Reading stories about all the awesome shit going on that I didn’t get to see in person inspires me. It makes me aware there is a lot going on and helps me learn how to get myself more involved by seeing how others did. It makes me a better rper in the room when I see someone else using amazing emotes I never thought to try. Seeing the stories after they are long over adds to the game's vibrancy.

4) Player reminders/warnings before big events:  I always do this in my games. When there is a strong possibility that death is going to occur in an RPT or event it is always a good idea to remind players if you participate in this event there is no guarantee your side is going to win or you are going to survive. Warn players every time,  let them know if they don’t want to risk their pc they need to not play during the event and maybe even work out an ic reason why they couldn’t. The Byn, AoD, ect should have very clear posts on all their boards that these roles may be called to combat from which their pc may not survive. That should go without saying in Arm but people get whirled up and the way our combat system works death can feel very unfair or jarring. Because we have lots of players shit sometimes goes down differently than even Staff expected. From the pcs perspective they may think they have a conflict in the bag but not be aware of another group acting against them.

 Players need to be reminded frequently that there are other players in the game that don’t always want the same things they do. Just throwing up a “disclaimer, participation in this event may result in death and nothing is guaranteed on whatever board posts discuss the time/date of the RPT.” Goes a long way to gently remind people their side isn’t necessarily gonna be on top in the end.  There are no “good guys” in arm, both city states are evil as fuck. All the merchant houses are corrupt. Even the best meaning most hippy dippy tribes have done things that are horrible to PCs that may have felt they were killed just so someone could get a notch on their belt. It is an illusion to feel you're the hero who is entitled to a victory. Players should be reminded about this often.
Make sure anyone apping for a Combat leadership role including all Templars know they may be put into situations where they have no choice but to participate and thats part of the role. You would think that goes without saying but it never hurts to gently remind someone the role they want comes with a lot of power but also has obligations that can result in abrupt deaths.

5) Rebrand the game-  Running “murder, Betray, and corruption” as our tagline in and of itself attracts a certain type of player. It also does not breed trust in staff. NPC leaders in your clan should support Players within reason. If a Player is doing a horrible job, that's one thing but I have literally had a merchant character die because a staff run npc who was my boss ordered my PC and another pc in my clan to kill each other to decide who was going to get a promotion. Nothing to do with who was doing the better job or who was running the clan more efficiently.  My character told the NPC you should promote whoever is doing the best job. I am not going to murder my cousin over it. I went on to say If that’s what it’s come to give the other PC the promotion it's not worth murdering someone too me. One day later I got ambushed and I’m leaving out details but they told me my pc relative “Says hello”. That event destroyed my trust in staff and I took a 4 year break after it. There is literally people that think fucking someone over for the sake of showing how “evil and corrupt” you are is good rp because “murder corruption Betrayal”

These are things that are fun to do sometimes but they are not fun for the victim. It perpetuates distrust and that bleeds OOC. There is no one that compartmentalize that well. We can still have murder death and Betrayal but it shouldn't be a tagline and staff shouldn't be driving it in their own Clans. Players should feel like their clan staff supports them and isn't out to trip them up and watch them burn.

If a noble is ruining their house, yes npcs Senior should step in. Oash didnt work that hard getting top tier to let Fuckwitious Oash single handedly ruin the families good name. If a Templar is abusing their role, or consorting with defilers, ect.. yes staff needs to step in. But staff does not need to stir up or force player vs player conflict in clan. You put enough pcs in the same areas together frequently and often enough they will figure out reasons to fight. I feel if more clans had better documentation like the Bashurit do it would be a lot easier to drum up realistic reasons for conflict as well.

6) Xenophobic clans hurt the game.
I will keep saying this until I am blue. It’s a good concept on paper. It works well in a novel but it doesn’t play well. When 1/3rd to 1/2 of your player base can not or will not go to places where they interact with other players because of their culture/race/subguild you are kneecapping the opportunity for meaningful and organic player driven conflict.

Proposal: one major hub in the game needs to be fucking legitimately neutral. Every major clan/race/city state should have at least 1 major item they are required to use trade to acquire. 
Change up the political landscape

 No one wants to be around nobles because they roam around like a bunch of mean girls more interested in bullying commoners than really engaging each other as political rivals. It can be fun to play the oppressor but no one wants to be the oppressed victim that can’t fight back.   Tell me this which is more likely to result in ongoing plots that involve lots of people. A city where humans are racist and the dominant race and if you talk down to, or respond in a way one of the leader humans doesn’t like you get killed. So you can ultimately either suck it up and rp being a punching bag with no chance of ever really getting anything done or you can try to fight the power and ultimately end up dead in the Arena. Or a city where other races are amongst the ranks of the Upper crust and are diametrically opposed to the other ruling factions/houses/whatever. Promote more situations where the big players are punching at each other and not down at the pc commoners.

7) More Player Staff collaboration projects- The more players are involved in the documentation and implementation of setting the better. Being on the Bashurit project is by far going to the thing I am most proud I got to do in Armageddon.

[racurtne]

I just recently came back to the game and I was having fun so far. However, I am currently feeling turned off of the game for two or three major reasons. Even if I take another break I can come back later if things improve. I was and still am largely in the dark on what occurred. What I can piece together makes me reluctant to spend more time on this hobby.

1.Harassment IG should never get to the point where it is OOCly uncomfortable. What makes people Oocly uncomfortable varies so clear boundaries need to be set and then rigorously enforced. If someone presses the stop button OOC, we should consider accomplishing our IC goals in different fashions. If the only way you can undermine people is with sexual harassment and trying to OOCly psyche people out and hate playing, I think there is something wrong with that.
2. Staff in leadership positions of any sort is inherently problematic for a variety of reasons others have said. This is just plain unfair often because your fellow staffers will be less likely to make the world "react realistically" to your plots. You have a host of ways to gather IC secrets about who else may be plotting against your avatar. If you can't handle not being in a position of power and influence with a character, perhaps you shouldn't be trusted with the power and influence of being on staff. The knowledge that this might be going on sucked out 99% of my will to play over the last couple of days. It really feels like being an extra in someone else's movie. I like playing a useful minion to other players and helping them achieve their goals. I don't even like playing leaders and this turned me off.
3. I think neutral arbitration(ie people not on staff overseeing staff/player interaction in some fashion) is a good idea.
4. Calling out bad behavior should not result in bans. While I realize people can manufacture made up stories, this never looks good on those doing the banning. At best it lends credence to the claims by acknowledging them(whether true or false), at worst it convinces others to follow them out the door.Transparency helps restore trust. Banning and not addressing claims leaves the dialogue completely out of your hands. You gain nothing and risk a lot by doing this.

[flurry]

I have a bad habit of waiting too long to jump into a discussion, only to see the thread get locked. So, let me chime in now.

I'm sure I don't have as clear an understanding of all that led up to this. That said, I understand enough to know it's given me pause about current game policies and whether or not I want to continue to play.

There have been a lot of good ideas shared here. Here are my suggestions.

1. Consider writing a staff mission statement, if one doesn't already exist. Or revising it if it does. Reflect on what the role of the staff is and should be.  Share the statement with players.
2. As others have said, be kind to players.  I'd add to that, be humble. Humility and kindness would go a long way to restore trust.
3. Transparency should guide your way as well.
4. Avoid heavy-handedness with moderation. It's simply not a good look. Whatever the intention is, it looks like an effort to squash criticism.
5. Be willing to make bold changes. This game is worth saving.

I might add more thoughts later.

March 14 edit:

I had one other suggestion to help improve player/staff communication.  I suspect most players have had requests that were closed without actually being resolved, whether because some key question was overlooked or a crucial point misunderstood. Perhaps it would be helpful if a closed request automatically gave the player an optional, brief survey to assess whether the staff response was satisfactory. This would give staff immediate feedback and also provide producers some insight into patterns that need attention.

[SpyGuy]

I started to write a longer post but actually, I'm just going to keep this first part.  Until this gets addressed it doesn't matter what staff does to fix the magick/mundane divide, promote interactivity or whatever. If I can't trust that staff aren't abusing their positions then I will never have a reason to return.

By my understanding, every staff member knew a rule was being broken by allowing a staffer to play a sponsored role.  This staffer also had a history of reports for abuse that Producers at the very least were aware of.  I feel like I've seen this all before in staff of the past.  Why was this current person never held accountable?  Were they not monitored by other staff? How many times did people turn a blind eye to a complaint and why?  Was it because that person was also your OOC friend and you didn't want to tell them when they were in the wrong? Or that staff (particularly leadership) didn't think these issues were actually a problem?  What is it about staffing Arm that attracts the abuse of the position?

If you genuinely want to restore trust then staff leadership and staff as a whole need to hold yourselves accountable.  What else have other staffers been doing that might violate the rules?  Since I don't believe you'll be airing your dirty laundry out for all to see, what will you be doing internally to ensure this doesn't keep happening?  This isn't anything new, several people quit last year because of all these issues.  Why was this never handled then or before that, why was it allowed to fester?   And how will you create a system where staff are held accountable to the rules you set up to begin with?

Then you need to figure out how to prove to us all that you're serious about reform.  To be honest, some of the moderation I've seen since this whole thing blew up makes me feel like people are circling the wagons instead of looking inward. 

[Yam]

A large portion of the playerbase does not and should not trust staff actions or accountability right now.

The rest has been mod-edited by Hestia because it violates the rule: c)  Do not single out individuals.  Whether pro or against.

You've got to be kidding me with this edit. This is exactly what I was talking about. If you're going to use the singling out individuals rule to protect staff from any criticism, you're not actually willing to accept feedback or change. This just looks like damage control.

[Veselka]

Moderated by Haldol for violating the following rules:

b)  Name-calling, bashing individuals, trolling, all of that is not allowed.

[Brokkr]

You were informed of the rules upfront.

You need to follow the rules, or frankly, your feedback is not welcomed at this time.

This thread is not about revisiting the past.  It is very targeted towards looking at future changes.

Thus, stringent rules to keep the feedback targeted, so that both players and Staff can stay on target towards this goal.

Which is why this thread will be moderated per the rules posted upfront.

We understand that you want to give broader feedback, or feedback on individuals.  This is simply is not the thread to do that in, nor is Staff ready to tackle that until we have tackled this.  This thread and the game is where our bandwidth is going right now.