My views on the state of the community

Well for my views and what I remember.

I guess to briefly gloss over during my term (check my signature for my start and end date so you know approx. what time period). I remember being under the team of MangoTango when he was Lead Admin (though he was mod briefly until becoming Lead). Mango really put his foot down and I liked that. During that 2018 year, the staff was going downhill. The staff I remembered, Mango remembered, and many others was the staff that, while maybe scared shitless if they fucked up, realized the consequences OF fucking up. There was proper training, protocol, and repercussions for what happened. It put the staff team in check and the number of reports I've seen currently against staff members, and in fact approved staff reports, is frankly sad. I can't EVER remember a time when there were this many valid staff reports.

We really need someone who was like MangoTango or Darktooth. Whether it be our current Lead Admins or anybody else who is on the staff team, start being aware of everything that you and others are doing and don't be afraid to speak up about another staff member doing something wrong. Look at Crew Resource Management (CRM) in relation to aviation for effective communication. Currently I feel like some people may want to be staff member just because they will be a "staff member". Not to abuse it or anything, but they think it'd be cool to help out and that's really it. I see lackluster communication and not much attention given to players on an individual basis.

The staff team I remember is not what we have right now. 2014-2016 staff was under great control (and for the 2018-2019 period of MangoTango). We need that back. Mods need to understand the repercussions of screwing up, they need to be punished (and demoted if need be. None of this "if they do it again we'll demote them" and then you have him doing it again). Yeah, the staff protocol was strict back then, but look at the quality of staff members back then vs. now.

TL;DR. Overall sloppiness and inconsistency between staff team. The administration needs to lay clear ground rules and repercussions for staff members who fail to perform their duties in a professional manner or fail to meet the standards of their staff member rank.

P.S. Also the N-word thing is ridiculous. Said from the beginning people would abuse it, spam it, and it'd be annoying. Still don't know why this is allowed.

 

Staff are volunteers that moderate a decade old game. It’s not a paid job, but they do it anyway. It’s already surprising that there’s an active biweekly time requirement, so why add on the extra stress of never being able to fuck up? Have you never made a mistake? I’m not saying letting everything slide as just a slap on the wrist, but there’s no reason to make the job even more draining.

 

The forums should not be more important than the game and server themselves. For many members, the game isn't even playing a role anymore.

 

Oh I have. The 1st ever ban appeal I handled, I think it was either my shadowplay/demo never saved, or ShareX bugged out. I'm not saying you should be scared out of your mind, but you should understand that there should be consequences for messing up (especially another player's experience), which there aren't really any of right now.

 

You couldn’t control your recording software bugging out. You’re saying you would have been fine being demoted over a problem you could not control?

I’m just saying there should be room for error. A few minor mistakes should not be the same punishment as a major error.

 

Opinions from the outside are actually very valuable in this situation as most problems occur due to exactly that insider bubble.

 

As somebody who likes to troll myself, I will say some of the trolling has killed the server enjoyability and status among players. To preface I do troll still but I do it in an innocent way, I don't go after and headhunt and target other player and staff, I don't belittle other users and if staff want to ban me for the things I do I just roll over and take it. The trolling I do isn't really toxic and post no threat to the server and is mostly just for people to laugh at really nobodies' expense. But, there are two types of user who trolling antics do post threats to the enjoyability. The first groups are the hardcore, toxic, trolls. I will admit I used to be one of these people in like 2018 so I know their motives pretty well. These people just rip into the staff just for being staff and have animosity for people who sympathize with the staff as well. They complain about how the server has changed for the worst but pose no answer on how to help it. They make petty reports on staff just for the fact that a staff member did something little wrong. The reports are usually like a staff member missed a slay because the server was busy, or I was bending the rules on the server and staff did something about or the most common one, the staff made a judgment call on the forums that I don't agree with because of my toxic viewpoint. A point can be made that reports like this help better off staff for doing the right things next but they way these reports are made by these players are just to undermine and harass the staff for doing such a minute thing wrong. These players cross the line from innocent trolling for laughs to trolling to undermine and belittle the staff just because the staff isn't as good as they were or they don't agree with the staff's judgment calls. I will agree the staffing now is a shell of what it used to be but just harassing them and providing no valuable help doesn't solve that issue. The other group of people is those who are genuinely delusional. They think their ideas are better than everyone else and everyone should agree with them because they are right and know how to help the server. Their suggestions are usually out of touch with the reality of the situation and think they are the saviors of the SGM. Anyone who can logically think can see through this and find their ideas are actually just their own revisioning of the server rules to suit their own needs. There is nothing you can do to avoid these people and the best thing for staff to do is to try to ignore them and not to give them the light of day because they just fuel off them. This is just my perspective of things from an off and on forums user. I do not want to see SGM go down in flames due to conflicts between the staff and players because I have made a lot of good memories here and it would taint them.

 

I think it is a bit funny when a random comes onto the server, drops the hard N expecting to be banned or something but then everyone just moves on with there day. Also a big community doesn't mean a good one. I prefer a smaller community where I can go one and see a few names I recognize and then proceed to tell them to ''Just be American.''

 

Holy fuck y’all typed a lot here’s a TLDR FOR POINTS I LIKE AND RESPOND TO:
Vanilla players are cool: this is a fucking cap, they are toxic in a unique way that they all use that fucking shot gun.

modded players: they the older base, all vips so they have a sense of entitlement that they paid for something. Get over it pussies no one likes your toxic nature.

 

I mean, this is all well and good, but the second Mango left it was very clear that a lot of the people under him did not like his management style. I mean, he was incredibly hard on the staff team and I don't necessarily know if it really worked out all that well. I mean, I am not trying to talk shit, but I think the biggest weakness actually comes from the administration right now. I had this trouble while I was a lead admin. I noticed that the moderators were doing good, they all had solid hours and were friendly and usually engaged well with the community at large. A lot of problems came from the fact that moderators weren't being trained well. The problem is simple: how the fuck do you approach this if you are a lead admin? Tell the admins to train their tmods more? I mean, they have to be willing to put in the work, and often times they just don't.

I think that all the admins right now are good people, and they are all very capable, they just kind of lack at times. Either they aren't around, they weren't trained very well to begin with (godamn it MangoTango and Teroxa ) or they simply just don't give a shit enough to vibe with the community at large. Worst yet, replacing these admins with people who ARE motivated isn't always so simple. What it takes to be a Moderator vs. what it takes to be an Administrator are different, and sometimes the best mod can become the worst admin. In turn, the worst moderator can become the best admin.

In addition, I think the problems we have now are rooted in problems that began at the start of last year. When the rules got changed, everyone was sent into a panic. The people who trained mods knew the rules of old, and it has been a real bitch to get people switched over. Often times shit you see in the old rules didn't show up in the new rules, and vice versa. That is why I spend so long painstakingly going through the extended rules and clarifying shit and making things more clear. I asked staff members and community members to look over the drafts and revise them, especially if certain areas were confusing as fuck or vague. Yet, I think some of the older staff still run on Opal rules.

I guess my biggest problem with your post is the arrogance and lack of compassion. Like, the problems that exist are more complicated than just "demote demote demote suspend suspend suspend." I think the best way forward is to empower the administration to take actions as a whole, and to stop relying on Jabba to handle everything. My biggest regret was that I micromanaged too much, I should have delegated more tasks to my admins, or, I should have micromanaged my admins better. I should have let my admins deal with forum warnings, deal with forum reports, and I should have put more faith that they would step up to the plate if thrown to the wolves. There should have been more times where I turned to them and got their opinion on matters, and obviously I should have instructed them to do more work separate from myself.

TL;DR: My dick is very big and I am the bestest boy.

 

What a waste of time lmao

 

Like uhh, who are you again?

 

omg so funni. first time hearing that

 

wow, first time here someone asking people for a creative to get banned too, how original.

 

Sorry, didn't know you were the first person to ever write that in the world. I'm truly heart broken and distraught from my actions. I hope you can forgive me, cause I took your pride and joy of saying something really intellectual on a very important forum. Again, Forgive me.

 

i just took a shit what up

 

We get it you are not funny, if you want to try harder next it would be nice

 

I already wrote on shoutbox about this, stop stroking me for attention and from others. If you want to talk about it, do it privately. Forums and threads aren't your place to show off how smart u are, trust me

 

storking you for attention says the one who made two unfunny posts for attention